**Mary Steenburgen and Jake Johnson in "The Dink," premiering July 24, 2026 on Apple TV.**

Jake Johnson and Mary Steenburgen elevate an easygoing sports comedy that serves plenty of charm but rarely surprises, delivering a familiar underdog story that never quite reaches championship form.

Every generation seems to discover its own unlikely sports phenomenon. Whether it was poker, cornhole, CrossFit or curling during the Winter Olympics, there’s always something that begins as a punchline before suddenly becoming impossible to ignore. Pickleball has reached that point, exploding from retirement communities into country clubs, public parks and seemingly every empty tennis court in America. On paper, it feels like perfect material for a sports comedy. The underdog appeal is already built into the premise, the culture surrounding it practically writes its own jokes and audiences naturally understand why traditional tennis players might roll their eyes at the sport’s meteoric rise.

The Dink recognizes all of that almost immediately. Unfortunately, it never digs much deeper than the obvious observations.

That’s not to say the film isn’t enjoyable. It is. Josh Greenbaum directs with his usual confidence, Jake Johnson remains one of the most effortlessly likable comedic actors working today and Mary Steenburgen brings a warmth that improves virtually every scene she inhabits. I smiled often enough, laughed a handful of times and never found myself checking how much runtime remained. But by the time the credits rolled, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d just watched a perfectly pleasant movie instead of one that had anything meaningful to say about competition, failure or redemption.

What surprised me most wasn’t how formulaic The Dink becomes. Sports movies have always thrived on familiar rhythms. We know there’s going to be a comeback. We know there’s going to be a championship. We know someone is going to rediscover their confidence after losing it years earlier. The best films simply convince us that we’ve never seen those familiar beats presented quite this way before. The Dink rarely finds that perspective, settling instead for comfort over creativity.

**Jake Johnson in "The Dink," premiering July 24, 2026 on Apple TV.**

Jake Johnson stars as Dustin Boyd, a former tennis prodigy whose promising career disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived. A devastating wrist injury prevented him from becoming the professional athlete everyone expected, leaving him coaching privileged children at the same tennis club where his father still clings to increasingly outdated ideas about prestige, success and athletic excellence. Dusty has spent years convincing himself that his best days happened decades ago, turning old accomplishments into stories that grow slightly larger every time he tells them.

Johnson understands this kind of character instinctively. Few actors are better at portraying men who weaponize sarcasm to hide disappointment, and that’s precisely what makes Dusty more sympathetic than the screenplay sometimes deserves. He isn’t bitter because life treated him unfairly. He’s bitter because he never figured out who he was once tennis stopped defining him. Johnson finds the insecurity underneath the bravado without asking the audience to excuse the character’s flaws, making Dusty’s eventual transformation feel earned even when the screenplay takes the scenic route getting there.

That emotional grounding carries much of the film because the story itself never strays very far from expectation. Dusty’s introduction to pickleball begins with outright contempt, viewing the sport as an embarrassment to serious tennis before circumstances eventually force him onto the court himself. Naturally, skepticism becomes curiosity, curiosity becomes passion and passion eventually becomes purpose. Anyone who has watched even a handful of sports movies can probably predict nearly every major story beat within the opening twenty minutes.

Normally, that wouldn’t bother me. Genre conventions exist for a reason. The issue is that Sean Clements’ screenplay rarely finds opportunities to complicate those conventions or push its characters into emotionally revealing territory. Every conflict resolves exactly when you expect it to, every reconciliation arrives on schedule and every lesson is delivered with just enough sincerity to avoid feeling cynical without ever becoming particularly memorable.

**Mary Steenburgen in "The Dink," premiering July 24, 2026 on Apple TV.**

Mary Steenburgen quietly gives the film its strongest performance as Candace, the pickleball enthusiast who gradually helps Dusty rediscover his competitive spirit. Thankfully, the movie resists reducing her to a conventional romantic prize waiting at the end of the protagonist’s emotional journey. Steenburgen instead plays Candace as someone entirely comfortable with herself, allowing her confidence to become the catalyst for Dusty’s personal growth rather than simply another reward for his redemption. Their chemistry feels genuine because it isn’t built around grand romantic gestures so much as mutual respect, something the screenplay handles with considerably more maturity than I expected.

Ed Harris, meanwhile, does everything possible with a father figure written almost entirely from familiar sports-drama blueprints. Chuck Boyd is demanding, emotionally distant and incapable of expressing affection unless it’s attached to athletic success. Harris gives him enough humanity to avoid becoming a caricature, but the screenplay never allows him to evolve beyond the archetype. Their inevitable emotional reconciliation lands because both actors commit to it completely, not because the writing has fully earned the moment.

**Jake Johnson and Ben Stiller in "The Dink," premiering July 24, 2026 on Apple TV.**

The supporting cast only reinforces the sense that greater potential is constantly sitting just outside the frame. Patton Oswalt, Chloe Fineman, Fortune Feimster, Chris Parnell and Ben Stiller are all capable of considerably sharper comedy than they’re allowed here. Stiller’s extended appearance as an eccentric physician feels especially underwhelming, stretching a joke that probably would’ve worked better in half the time. Oddly enough, former tennis stars Andy Roddick and John McEnroe leave stronger impressions simply by embracing exaggerated versions of their own public personas.

What I appreciated most about The Dink is that it ultimately understands its story isn’t really about pickleball. It’s about identity. Dusty spends years believing that failing to become a professional athlete somehow invalidated everything he’d accomplished before. Pickleball becomes less a replacement for tennis than an opportunity to rediscover why he loved competition in the first place. That’s a genuinely worthwhile idea, particularly in an era where so much of modern sports culture has become inseparable from fame, money and social media validation.

POPULAR ON THE CINEMA GROUP

I only wish the screenplay trusted that quieter emotional journey instead of repeatedly returning to formulaic underdog storytelling. Every time the film begins exploring something interesting about aging, regret or redefining success, it quickly pivots back toward predictable sports-movie mechanics. The championship matters less than the character believes it does, yet the film still frames it as though everything depends upon the outcome.

Visually, Greenbaum keeps things polished without drawing much attention to himself. The pickleball matches are easy to follow and competently staged, but they rarely generate the kind of excitement that great sports filmmaking can create. Considering how kinetic tennis has looked in films ranging from Wimbledon to Challengers, it’s surprising how rarely The Dink finds visual personality on the court. Apple’s production values remain consistently strong, yet the movie carries the same clean, anonymous aesthetic that has defined many streaming originals over the past few years.

Perhaps that’s ultimately what holds The Dink back more than anything else. Nothing about it is bad. Very little of it is distinctive. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a pleasant afternoon: enjoyable while you’re experiencing it, difficult to remember in detail afterward. Jake Johnson’s charisma smooths over many of its rougher edges, Mary Steenburgen gives the story genuine heart and Josh Greenbaum ensures the pacing never drags, but I kept waiting for the movie to surprise me with either sharper comedy or deeper emotional insight. That moment never really arrives.

Still, I can’t bring myself to dislike a movie this fundamentally good-natured. The Dink understands that not every sports film needs to reinvent the genre, and not every comedy needs to become the funniest movie of the year. Sometimes audiences simply want to spend a couple of hours with characters they enjoy watching. On that level, the film succeeds.

I just wish it had swung a little harder.

Rating: ★★★½☆

Thats A Wrap

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The Dink

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Thats A Wrap | The Dink |

“‘The Dink’ never reinvents the sports comedy, but Jake Johnson’s effortlessly charming performance and Mary Steenburgen’s warmth give this familiar underdog story enough heart to stay in the game. It’s an easy recommendation for fans of feel-good comedies, even if it never quite delivers the knockout punch it keeps building toward.”

— Jonathan P. Moustakas

CREDITS

Release Date: July 24, 2026

Cast: Jake Johnson, Mary Steenburgen, Ed Harris, Ben Stiller, Patton Oswalt

Director: Josh Greenbaum

Writer: Sean Clements

Studio: Apple TV

Runtime: 1 hour, 43 minutes

Rating: PG-13