ome people are born winners.” Dustin “The Hammer” Boyd (Jake Johnson) believes he’s in the upper echelon of elite athletes. And he’s not entirely wrong; before he even graduated high school, he turned pro. He was a top tennis player, routinely crushing the likes of Andy Roddick. But in 2000, when Roddick took a bathroom break during the middle of an open, Dustin went after him, slipped on some water, and shattered his wrist, ending his promising career. Now, he’s a coach for unenthusiastic 9-year-olds, working at his dad’s facility.

Unfortunately for Dustin, his unimpressed father (and former coach) Chuck (Ed Harris, currently stuck in these severe, imposing roles, but fitting the part unbelievably well) doesn’t believe his son is the hotshot he used to be. In fact, he thinks he’s something of a loser. When the Mountain Crest Tennis Club experiences a schism among its members, succumbing to the popularity of pickleball, an underhanded ruse is devised to create a duel of sorts between the two sports, a contest that will suppress the vote of the members hoping to expand the spaces reserved for pickleball. But in order for Dusty to be Chuck’s choice for the club’s competitor, he must win a local championship. Instead, he re-injures himself, pressuring him to give the simpler sport of pickleball a try, per his doctor’s recommendation. “It’s nothing personal, son. We just can’t trust you.”

The premise just might be the most generic one possible, essentially reusing Ben Stiller’s own “Dodgeball” plot (here, the producer/actor appears as a doctor with inappropriate suggestions). And it doesn’t help that the star is an egotistical, cocky, snobbish jerk who must reform after misunderstanding the playing and the players (the standard quest for self-esteem and redemption); after all, everyone at the tennis club thinks that pickleball is inferior and for members with no real skills. “The coronavirus of sports.”

It may be the first moderate-budgeted film with recognizable stars that features the “goofy,” “dorky” hobby, but that’s about the only notable element of this production. From montages to exaggerated slow-motion to an over-the-top sidekick (an amusing Aaron Chen) to embarrassing confrontations, the inspirational sports comedy components are entirely routine and predictable. There might not be a single scene that hasn’t been recycled from another, comparable picture. It does boast a brief explanation for a handful of pickleball rules and terms (it’s far from accurate in the depiction of actual gameplay); the blithe nature of finesse shots like dinking; the obnoxiousness of grunting participants; and the crushing disappointment of struggling to live up to a father’s high expectations (paired with empty faith and emotional betrayal), but these are, again, highly unoriginal concepts.

Perhaps its most redeeming quality is the burgeoning relationship between the younger hothead and the kindhearted, older Candace (Mary Steenburgen), which curiously exemplifies true-to-life contrasts in pickleball players; it’s often noted that pickleball brings together people from vastly different age ranges. Here, however, it nods a little too much to “The Graduate,” something that requires showing footage from that aforementioned movie so that modern audiences might understand the reference. It also goes off on strange tangents, focusing on unrelated items like country music and sexual obsessions with non-human entities – allowing for a raft of crude sexual jokes (though virtually none of the laughs are genuine gut-busters, instead relying on light slapstick and a couple of comic cameos).

If nothing else, all of the relationship drama and filler content reenforces the fact that building a feature-length movie around pickleball isn’t exactly a universal, commercial prospect (or, in the case of this non-theatrical endeavor, deemed to be profitable). Oddly, the mix of a standard sports comedy script with the modestly unusual pickleball (which will confuse those unfamiliar, and likely confuse avid players, too, particularly with the climax featuring singles rather than the more popular doubles) makes this project a conundrum, designed to appeal to an undetermined demographic. “I think we’ve got ourselves an old-fashioned dink-off.”

– Mike Massie