QUICK HIT: The Dink [2026]

July 23, 2026

1–2 minutes

Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 102 minutes
Release Date: July 24th, 2026 (USA)
Studio: Apple Original Films
Director(s): Josh Greenbaum
Writer(s): Sean Clements

Do the dishes while you in there, bitch.

I think Ed Harris’ Chuck said it best: “This is stupid.”

Director Josh Greenbaum and writer Sean Clements build The Dink as a pop culture pickleball primer while simultaneously excoriating the game at every turn whether it’s Chuck branding it the “COVID of racket sports” or Andy Roddick saying, “This isn’t a real sport.” But doesn’t that actually mean it’s lambasting the tennis establishment’s refusal to give its new offshoot any credit for breathing life into derelict courts? I guess.

Here’s the thing, though. Above any of that debate, this film epitomizes the slop formula that streaming has adopted wherein everything is explained to the finest detail so there can be no mistaking what themes were shoehorned in to pretend it’s anything more than an excuse to pay a lot of familiar faces some of that good Wall Street cash now that Hollywood is consuming itself. Harris channels his ire perfectly. Mary Steenburgen looks to be having actual fun.

It’s never better than when her Candace and Jake Johnson’s Dusty are together—even with they stumble into The Graduate territory while literally watching The Graduate. The Ben Stiller stuff is bad. The Aaron Chen stuff is tired. The John McEnroe stuff … no, that landed for me. And while trying to Dodgeball the finale erases all tension while Dusty’s “growth” instantly reverses as Daddy shows pride in the wrong thing, at least we discovered Roddick is a Pete Weber fan.

Oh, and you gotta love a parent giving their blessing to let a child deliver a PG-13 f-bomb. It’s the film’s biggest laugh … and it happens two minutes in.