The Dink: An uneven rally

The Dink (2026) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five); rated PG-13, for occasional profanity and plenty of sexual vulgarity

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.2.26

File this one under “Silly, but fun.”

 

I’ve been waiting for filmmakers to embrace the rapidly expanding explosion of pickleball, and director Josh Greenbaum and scripter Sean Clements have treated this new sport pastime with a blend of humor and good-natured ribbing.

 

Much to his surprise, washed-up tennis pro Dusty (Jake Johnson) begins to enjoy
pickleball, thanks in great part to the kindness and encouragement of Candace
(Mary Steenburgen), his regular partner.

While, sadly, making a few fouls along the way. (About which, more in a moment.)

From the moment he could hold a tennis racket — age 3 — Dusty Boyd was groomed and trained by his father, Chuck (Ed Harris), to become a skilled, forceful and unrelenting tennis pro. By age 17 (now played by Nathan Blair), laden with a roomful of trophies, he had earned the nickname for which he would henceforth be known: “The Hammer.”

 

Then, catastrophe: Following a climactic, hard-fought match against the similarly talented Andy Roddick (Cooper Woestendick), Dusty miscalculated a cocky jump over the net ... and his career was over.

 

Cut to the present day.

 

Dusty (now Jake Johnson), still driving his beloved 1999 Buick LeSabre,  has been reduced to coaching children at Chuck’s tennis club. Dusty has been recounting his flashback rise and fall to a pair of adolescents who couldn’t possibly care less (played with eye-rolling, long-suffering-sigh perfection by Indiana Elle and Cayden Romero).

 

Alas, change is in the wind. Chuck already has granted two of his courts to the demands of local pickleball enthusiasts (the two courts most in need of repair, it should be noted). He’s finding it increasingly difficult to ignore the group’s earnest spokesman, Skip (Patton Oswalt), who wants more courts ... and his well-researched arguments are starting to gain traction. 

 

In an effort to silence Skip, Chuck proposes a winner-take-all pickleball match between each group’s best player. Dusty — insisting that he’s now fully healed, and still desperate to prove himself in his father’s eyes — lobbies to be the club’s champion. Chuck reluctantly agrees, and Dusty throws himself into training ... and, naturally, reaggravates his original wound, and is forced to step down.

 

To add insult to injury — literally — Dusty’s orthopedist (Ben Stiller) prescribes pickleball as the perfect “soft contact” activity to help him heal again. 

 

And, so, Dusty reluctantly joins a gaggle of “pickle pals” on their court one day. He’s partnered with Candace (Mary Steenburgen) in a match against the feisty Gail and Judy (Cleo King and Lynne Marie, both a total hoot). They relentlessly talk smack and taunt Dusty during the calamity of his first attempt at the game, as he repeatedly tries to employ knock-it-over-the-bleachers power returns, instead of the necessary gentler touch ... and whiffs every time.

 

How to Make a Killing: Loses its way

How to Make a Killing (2025) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five); rated R, for profanity and violence

Available via: Amazon Prime and other VOD options

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.19.26

Writer/director John Patton Ford faced two cinematic challenges with this macabre little thriller.

 

First, the general rule of remakes and sequels: If the result isn’t at least as good as the original, if not better, then the viewer’s time is being wasted.

 

While sizing up the youngest member of the Redfellow family, in the line of succession,
Becket (Glen Powell) quickly discovers that the guy is an arrogant, reckless
waste of space.

Second, and more crucially, some classic films are sacrosanct, and fall under the heading of Thou Shalt Not Touch. Here in the States, Casablanca and Gone with the Wind fall into that category. Across the pond, the Ealing Studios/Alec Guinness masterpiece, Kind Hearts and Coronets, has been a revered treasure since its 1949 debut.

Only a cheeky American would have the audacity to do it again.

 

In fairness, Ford wisely adopts the narrative template established by British scripters Robert Hamer and John Dighton, who in turn adapted Roy Horniman’s 1907 novel, Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal.

 

As with the original, this film opens in a jail cell, as Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell) awaits execution for murder. A priest (Adrian Lukis) arrives, with but four hours to go; when asked about final words, Becket relates his saga in flashback, with ongoing voiceover commentary.

 

It begins when 18-year-old Mary Redfellow — belonging to an obscenely wealthy, old-money family worth untold billions — unwisely becomes pregnant. She insists upon having the child, whereupon her imperious father Whitelaw (Ed Harris) banishes her from the family’s New York estate.

 

Important detail, though: She remains an heir, in the family line of succession.

 

Mary moves to the New Jersey township of Bellville, finds menial employment, and raises young Becket (Grady Wilson) to the best of her ability. Despite their meager circumstances, she ensures that Becket is exposed to refined pursuits, such as archery and music. But as the “poor kid” among children of wealthier families, he’s frequently tormented.

 

He catches the eye of Julia Steinway (Maggie Toomey), who returns his affection, but in a way that feels borderline cruel.

 

Becket is nonetheless happy, but the boy’s world is shattered when his mother takes ill. Before dying, she informs Becket of his rightful heritage. Her final wish is to be buried in the family crypt; this request is denied. 

 

Becket grows up angry, and not merely because he’s shuttled through a series of foster families. Upon achieving maturity, he obtains a good job with a custom tailor, where he has an unexpected reunion with Julia (Margaret Qualley). They briefly discuss his family background, and how he’s eighth in the line of succession.

 

“Call me when you’ve killed them all,” she says, mockingly, before exiting the shop.

Top Gun: Maverick — Top thrills

Top Gun: Maverick (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for intense action, and some strong language

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.27.22

When all the cylinders fire properly, it’s hard to beat a star-driven action melodrama.

 

Although this rip-roaring sequel to 1986’s Top Gun has been shaped to Tom Cruise’s outsized personality, there’s no denying the resulting entertainment value. This is classic Hollywood filmmaking: larger-than-life characters with just enough individuality to distinguish one from the next; a couple shades of interpersonal angst — and conflict — to touch the heartstrings; and all manner of heroic derring-do.

 

When his hot-shot students contemptuously snicker over Maverick's (Tom Cruise)
calm insistense that they still have a lot to learn, it doesn't take long for this "old guy"
to prove who really has the right stuff.

I’m generally concerned when the opening credits cite as many as five writers — in this case, Peter Craig, Justin Marks, Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer and Christopher McQuarrie — but this isn’t a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. Their story is cleverly structured into three distinct acts, each with specific goals and relationship arcs that blend with the high-octane fighter jet action.

Director Joseph Kosinski and editor Eddie Hamilton keep a steady hand on the throttle, and their tension-fueled ride never lets up.

 

Granted, this is one of those silly stories where everybody is known by colorful monikers, rather than their actual names. Ya gotta just roll with that.

 

In a refreshing nod to real time, more than three decades have passed since Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Cruise) established himself as one of the Navy’s top aviators. He has continued to push the envelope as a brave — and somewhat reckless — test pilot, nimbly dodging an advancement in rank that would ground him.

 

“It’s not what I am,” he admits, at one point. “It’s who I am.”

 

Each time a fresh act of insubordination has threatened to get him kicked out of the Navy, Maverick has been rescued by former nemesis-turned-wingman Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer), now a 4-star admiral with the clout to protect his longtime friend.

 

But even Iceman may not be able to save Maverick from the high-tech progress that includes robotic and remote-controlled fighter jets that won’t require flesh-and-blood pilots. 

 

“The future is coming,” barks Rear Adm. Chester “Hammer” Cain (Ed Harris, in a fleeting cameo), “and you’re not in it.”

 

Nonsense, Maverick replies. A mission’s success always will come down to the split-second reflexes of the pilot on the scene.

 

As if to test this belief, Maverick abruptly is sent back to “Top Gun” school, where he liaises with Adm. Beau “Cyclone” Simpson (Jon Hamm) and Adm. Solomon “Warlock” Bates (Charles Parnell). Assuming he’s about to get a mission, Maverick is chastened to learn that he’ll be teaching a dozen much younger Top Gun graduates: the elite “best of the best.” 

Mother! — A nauseating miscarriage

Mother! (2017) • View trailer 
No stars (Turkey). Rated R, for strong and disturbing violent content, sexuality, nudity and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.15.17

I never would have believed that the same calendar year could produce another mainstream film as self-indulgently loathsome as February’s A Cure for Wellness.

Actually, this one’s worse.

As her companion (Javier Bardem) inexplicably tolerates the intrusive presence of ever
more strangers in their huge home, our increasingly helpless heroine (Jennifer
Lawrence) wonders — and worries — where it'll all end.

Darren Aronofsky has pushed the borders of good taste — and any semblance of rational narrative structure — ever since 2000’s Requiem for a Dream. When tethered to somebody else’s (reasonably) coherent script — as with The Wrestler and Black Swan — his worst tendencies remain checked. He also can be a gifted actor’s director, having guided stars to Academy Award nominations and victories.

But when Aronofsky directs and writes ... look out.

Case in point: Mother!

Whether allegory, parable or primal scream, this blast of wretched excess is overwrought, insufferably distasteful and — once we reach the dog-nuts third act — vile beyond words. This abomination is guaranteed to enrage patrons into demanding refunds, after which they’ll stumble home, scarred for life, and in desperate need of a shower. And a means to sterilize their brains.

Alas, some things can’t be unseen.

On top of everything else, Aronofsky is guilty of stretching facile symbolism way past sustainability. Mother! might’ve made a decent 25-minute short subject; as a 121-minute assault on viewer sensibilities, it’s an exercise in mind-numbing overkill.

I carefully avoid spoilers, because even bad movies — well, most of them — deserve a chance to impress or surprise. But there’s simply no way to discuss Mother! without revealing Big Secrets. For which I apologize, in advance.

No characters are named. Our heroine (Jennifer Lawrence) shares an imposing mansion — isolated in a field, surrounded by a forest, far from any semblance of civilization — with her husband/lover/keeper (Javier Bardem). The place is a fixer-upper; she paints, plasters walls, handles plumbing and wood-working chores. She has been working thusly for quite some time, essentially re-building what had been a fire-gutted ruin.

He’s a poet, suffering the damnation of writer’s block. She’s patient, sympathetic, nurturing. She prepares his meals, encourages him to try, try again.

Snowpiercer: Full steam ahead!

Snowpiercer (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, extreme violence and gore, and drug content
By Derrick Bang

South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho came to my attention in early 2007, with the Stateside release of The Host, a taut, eye-popping monster flick that blended savvy political commentary with impressive levels of tension and excitement ... and more than a little dark-dark-dark humor.

Having captured Mason (Tilda Swinton, center) and made her their unwilling guide, Curtis
(Chris Evans, left) makes her lead the way as his desperate band moves from one train
car to the next, never certain of what they'll find beyond each new door.

Ho delivers the same mix with Snowpiercer, with a notable upgrade: While portions of The Host reflected the naturalistic, guerrilla-style filmmaking of a modest budget, this new film is an A-list production all the way. It looks spectacular in every respect, and is further enhanced by a top-quality cast of familiar faces from both American and South Korean cinema.

The grim, cautionary nature of Ho’s storytelling hasn’t diminished; he remains convinced that humanity doesn’t deserve the planetary paradise on which we reside. Give us half a chance, and we’ll screw it up. The horrific creature that wreaked havoc in The Host was spawned by arrogant Americans who polluted South Korea’s Han River with dangerous chemicals; the post-apocalyptic events in Snowpiercer result from our “brilliant” attempt to reverse the effects of global warming.

I’m reminded of the conversations known to have taken place prior to the initial atomic bomb tests in the 1940s — attributed to either or both Edward Teller and J. Robert Oppenheimer, depending on the source — and which explored the possibility that even a single bomb might ignite Earth’s atmosphere via a fusion reaction, and thus destroy the world. Such fears notwithstanding, Those In Charge pulled the switch, and I guess we can conclude that God (and Mother Nature) watched over us that day.

Luck isn’t with us this time. The essential back-story unfolds during a quick montage prologue, as news reports discuss the dispersal of a chemical agent designed to reverse the effects of global warming. We may well imagine a similar cautionary conversation about unintended consequences, but no matter: This switch also is pulled, perhaps just as recklessly, and the results are miraculous. At first.

Until the entire planet is plunged into a lethal ice age, destroying all life.

But this catastrophic result wasn’t instantaneous; time allowed a microcosm of humanity to be saved on board a sleek, lengthy train originally designed as the ultimate, self-contained vacation vehicle for rich tourists wanting to circumnavigate the globe. Now transformed into a futuristic Noah’s Ark, there’s just one problem: Seventeen years have passed, and there’s still no safe place to “land.”

The train races around the world, its nickname derived from the pointed “snout” and high-tech engines and gyroscopic computers that allow it to blast through the frequent snowdrifts and frozen ice that block the track.

Gravity: Grim survival drama

Gravity (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, disturbing images and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.4.13

On Jan. 11, 2007, the Chinese military destroyed one of its orbiting satellites with a ground-based missile. Although China insisted that this was the best way to “retire” the aging satellite, visions of a surface-to-space missile race naturally alarmed more than a few nations around the world.

When things go wrong in space, they go very wrong, as Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra
Bullock) quickly discovers. Situations that would be bad enough on the ground, with
gravity operating in one's favor, quickly turn catastrophic in an environment where a
small space suit puncture likely would mean instantaneous death.

Saber-rattling aside, the much more serious issue was the orbiting “debris cloud” of up to 300,000 bits of satellite that resulted, which still could pose serious danger to other satellites or spacecraft en route to the moon and beyond. (NASA, worried about this since 1978, has dubbed the frightening possibility of cascading collisions the Kessler Syndrome.) For this very reason, the U.S. and the Soviet Union halted such anti-satellite experiments in the 1980s.

Clearly, filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón smelled an opportunity. The result, which he directed and co-wrote with his son, Jonás, is Gravity: one of the very few feasible space-based dramas ever released via conventional channels. (I say this to distinguish Cuarón’s film from numerous sci-fi and fantasy entries, or jes’-plain-silly action epics such as Armageddon and Space Cowboys.)

Gravity is both a suspenseful nail-biter and an impressive visual achievement: a studio production that comes close to the on-screen authenticity of an IMAX space documentary. The special effects are stunning, from the gorgeously depicted EVA mission that opens the story, to the weightless activity that takes place within a space station.

When Sandra Bullock “swims” her way from one end of the station to another, passing all sorts of floating debris along the way — not to mention little globules of liquid, or zero-G electrical sparks — everything looks absolutely real. We can’t help a “how the heck did they do that?” sense of wonder, despite our frequent ho-hum reaction to what CGI effects have wrought these days.

Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and visual effects supervisor Tim Webber — and the latter’s company, Framestore — have done stunning work. Indeed, their efforts are almost too good; at times it’s hard to focus on the story, since we’re so frequently dazzled by the on-screen visuals.

But only at times. Cuarón has orchestrated a taut survival drama that masterfully exploits claustrophobic terrors, not to mention related fears of drowning, suffocating or simply being hurled, alone, into the depths of space, able to do nothing but count down the seconds before the oxygen runs out.

Pain & Gain: A brawny farce

Pain & Gain (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: R, for strong violence, gore, profanity, nudity, crude sexual content and drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.26.13

Truth really is stranger than fiction.

And sometimes quite a bit more deranged.

Having finally kidnapped Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub, center) after several bumbling
failures, Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg, right) orders the wealthy businessman to start
signing over his assets, while a nervous Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) hopes that
things won't spiral out of control. That turns out to be a vain hope...

In late 1994, a group of bodybuilders based at Miami’s Sun Gym went on a crime, kidnapping, torture and murder spree that was both audacious and utterly beyond belief. Because the gang didn’t collectively share enough brain cells to pass third grade, they were, of course, eventually caught ... thus proving another old adage: We can be grateful that most criminals are so bone-stupid.

The whole gory mess — and I do mean gory — eventually landed in court in early 1998, resulting in the most expensive criminal trial in Dade County history. The case was covered for the Miami New Times by journalist Pete Collins, who also scoured court documents and investigative reports, and interviewed the principal characters, for an extensive three-part series that ran in late December 1999 and early January 2000.

The story is readily available at the New Times website, and makes a jaw-dropping read. Check it out, and I’ll wait for you to get back.

All set? Eyebrows raised to a degree you wouldn’t have thought possible?

Moving on, then...

Director Michael Bay and scripters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have transformed this vicious circus into a hilariously warped dark comedy that signals its intentions with an opening on-screen crawl that reads: “The following story is based on actual events. Unfortunately.”

Yes, several characters and events have been excised for the sake of expediency, and a 10-minute chase toward the end is pure Hollywood nonsense. But the salient details, and the major players, are 100 percent authentic. Unfortunately.

The farcical tone isn’t merely perfect for the material; it’s also a necessary self-defense mechanism, particularly when third-act events stray into the wood-chipper territory of 1996’s Fargo. As these meat-headed lunatics become ever more desperate, this increasingly grim saga remains palatable only because stars Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson and Anthony Mackie are so deliciously, delightfully dumb.

Some viewers will find this tone quite tasteless — making fun of brutal psychopaths, no matter how stupid they are — particularly in the wake of recent events in Boston and Sandy Hook. And several of the actual people victimized by the gang are particularly incensed that their ordeal has been transformed into a jocular burlesque.

Honestly, I’m sympathetic to that view; quite a few of my chuckles were followed by wincing pangs of guilt. But I can’t help admiring the outcome; Bay has delivered an indictment of modern, American-style violence that — to me, at least — makes a much stronger (and far more entertaining) social statement than Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers.