Whether you (or I) like it or not, pickleball was always destined to get its own movie. It’s become one of the fastest-growing sports in America, seemingly occupying every empty tennis court in the country over the last few years, so it was really only a matter of time before Hollywood shamelessly decided to capitalize on the trend. The Dink embraces that premise with exactly the amount of sincerity you’d expect, delivering a family-friendly sports comedy that occasionally lands some genuinely funny jokes, even if it never really figures out what it wants to be beyond the pickleball movie.
The plot follows Dusty (Jake Johnson), a washed-up tennis pro whose career was cut short years earlier after running into Andy Roddick on the junior circuit and not only losing, but being embarrassed by the champ. Desperate to save his family’s struggling country club while finally earning the approval of his tennis-obsessed father, Dusty reluctantly does the one thing he swore he never would: play pickleball. What begins as a desperate financial decision gradually becomes something much more meaningful as he discovers not only a genuine appreciation for the sport, but also an unexpected sense of community among the people who welcome him into it.
It’s a perfectly serviceable premise, and for stretches, a pretty entertaining one. A lot of that comes down to Jake Johnson, who once again slips comfortably into the role he’s been refining for most of his career. From New Girl to the self-directed 2023 film Self Reliance and now The Dink, Johnson has built an entire persona around playing lovable, slightly aimless guys who can’t quite get out of their own way. The movie wisely doesn’t ask him to reinvent that formula. Instead, it lets him lean into the self-deprecating charm that’s made him such a consistently enjoyable screen presence. If you like New Girl and sports comedies, you’ll find, at the very least, fleeting enjoyment out of this.
The supporting cameos also do a surprising amount of heavy lifting. Andy Roddick is clearly having fun poking at his own legacy as the man largely responsible for derailing Dusty’s tennis career, while Ben Stiller pops in for a couple memorable scenes as Dusty’s doctor. My favorite running gag, though, comes courtesy of John McEnroe, who spends the third act enthusiastically commentating the climactic pickleball match between Dusty and Roddick with exactly the level of intensity you’d expect him to bring to something as absurd as professional pickleball. It’s the kind of joke that probably shouldn’t work as well as it does, but I found myself laughing nearly every time the film returned to it.
What surprised me most, however, was that the movie’s most interesting storyline has almost nothing to do with pickleball.
Dusty develops an unexpected relationship with Candace (Mary Steenburgen), one of the players who introduces him to the sport and slowly becomes both a mentor and something resembling a romantic interest. The film never fully commits to making them a couple, but there’s something genuinely sweet about watching Dusty mistake companionship and acceptance for romance while Candace simply enjoys having someone who makes her feel young again. It’s an unusual dynamic for a studio comedy, especially given the age difference between the characters, and I found myself much more invested in that relationship than I was in Dusty’s attempts to save the country club.
Helps that Steenburgen is terrific here. I couldn’t tell you the last movie I’d seen her in (Four Christmases maybe?), but she ends up becoming the emotional center of the entire film. Her scenes with Johnson have an ease to them that the rest of the movie never quite matches, particularly during a Southern-styled bar sequence where the two pretend to flirt in order to make Candace’s ex-husband jealous. It’s easily the funniest, most adventurous, and emotionally rich stretch of the film, which makes it all the more frustrating when The Dink more or less abandons those ideas ten minutes later to get back to the pickleball tournament.
Which is where the film ultimately loses me. Watching The Dink, I kept thinking about Happy Gilmore 2. Both are broad sports comedies packed with celebrity cameos, intermittent laughs, and just enough story to connect one joke to the next. The difference is that neither film seems especially interested in digging beneath its premise. The Dink has a few genuinely compelling ideas floating around the edges, but it always seems eager to get back to reminding you that this is, in fact, a pickleball movie.
It also suffers from the same visual flatness that’s become increasingly common among streaming comedies. The film has that glossy digital look that makes everything feel just a little too clean and a little too artificial. There’s very little in the way of visual personality, making the entire production resemble something that would’ve quietly debuted on a streaming service before disappearing into the algorithm a week later.
That’s probably my biggest takeaway from the movie as a whole. I had a decent enough time while I was watching it, but I can’t imagine thinking about it much beyond that. It’s how I’ve felt about a surprising amount of Jake Johnson’s filmography over the years. He’s almost always enjoyable, the movies are usually pleasant enough in the moment, but they rarely leave you with much to chew on afterward.
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I suppose I can now confidently say The Dink is the best pickleball movie I’ve ever seen. Granted, I can’t think of another pickleball movie, so perhaps that’s not saying much. More importantly, I think there’s a better movie buried somewhere inside this one, specifically the one about two lonely people finding friendship and connection at different stages of their lives. Instead, that story continually takes a backseat to a sports comedy that never quite justifies why it needed to be about pickleball in the first place.
Score: 5/10
The Dink (2026)
- Cast: Jake Johnson, Mary Steenburgen, Ed Harris, Andy Roddick, Aaron Chen, Ben Stiller, Chloe Fineman, Patton Oswalt
- Director: Josh Greenbaum
- Genre: Comedy
- Runtime: 102 minutes
- Rated: PG-13
- Release Date: July 23, 2026
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