Plot: Pryce Cahill is an over-the-hill, ex-pro golfer whose career was prematurely derailed 20 years ago. After the collapse of his marriage and getting fired from his job at an Indiana sporting goods store, Pryce hedges his bets and future entirely on a troubled 17-year-old golf phenom named Santi. This heartfelt, feel-good comedy is about a found family and their relationships set within the world of golf as it has never been shown before.
Review: The last time Owen Wilson played a veteran athlete training the next generation superstar in his sport was in 2017’s Cars 3. At 56, Wilson has played all sorts of characters across genres while seemingly never aging, but has never starred in a live-action sports story. With Stick, Wilson gives us one of the best performances of his career in a feel-good story about golf, family, friendship, and second chances. Golf is a great sport to feature on screen, and even if you are not a fan, you will find a lot to connect with in Stick. A series that had me smiling through all ten episodes, Stick is the perfect companion to fellow Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso and Shrinking, giving us an inspirational tale that is funny but hits all the right emotional notes.
Stick opens with Pryce Cahill (Owen Wilson) doing his best to upsell a local golfer at the Fort Wayne, Indiana, pro shop where he works. In his spare time, Cahill hustles at local bars with the help of his former caddy, Mitts (Marc Maron). After an explosive meltdown that ended his professional golfing career, Pryce lives in the home she shared with his ex-wife, Amber-Linn (Judy Greer), as he struggles to move on with his life. That is when Pryce runs across Santi Wheeler (Peter Dager) at a driving range and realizes the potential in the young golfer. Pryce goes to coach Santi and enlists Mitts and Santi’s mother Elena (Mariana Trevino) to get the young golfer to play professionally. After a few episodes setting up the relationship between Pryce and Santi as mentor and mentee, Stick takes the quartet on the road in a big RV to participate in tournaments across the country.
Early in their journey, Santi forges a relationship with Zero (Lilli Kay), a non-binary romantic interest for Santi who is a bit of a wedge between the golfer and his coach. Through the series, the bonds between the characters grow stronger, especially as they get to know who they are as people. Mitts is dealing with the still lingering grief from losing his wife years prior, while Santi and Elena are still hurt by the actions of Santi’s father, who caused the young man to stop playing golf in the first place. Pryce has his demons as he struggles to come to terms with a personal tragedy years prior that led to his infamous meltdown and fight with fellow golfer Clark Ross (Timothy Olyphant). Along the way, Stick blends the average Joe approach to golf that made Happy Gilmore a hit while keeping the comedy more mature. I laughed as much as I got choked up watching this series, and that is because I grew to care about where this entire ensemble was headed.
Stick works thanks to the tight, half-hour episodes that keep the story moving without lingering in aimless subplots. The hour-long premiere does a great job of setting up Pryce as a guy under the weight of feeling like a loser, but decent underneath. As all the characters get time to grow, the excitement of the golf sequences grows with it. Marc Maron is a grumpy guy, and Marian Trevino performs excellently as a protective mom, but both grow beyond their basic labels into intriguing characters. Lilli Kay is excellent as Zero, who starts as a presumptuous example of the woke stereotype but settles into being a lovely balance to Peter Dager’s Santi. The cast is all funny when they need to be, but never reduce Stick to being a comedy and nothing else. The series also benefits from a great Judy Greer as Pryce’s ex as well as Timothy Olyphant as Pryce’s douchey former friend. But Stick never wallows in good guys versus bad guys, as it tells a great story about people who need each other and work better as a team.
Created by Jason Keller, the ten-episode first season of Stick was written by Keller, Christopher Moynihan, Esti Giordani, Bill Callahan, Kate Fodor, Bryan Johnson, Jimy Shah, and Ryan Hooper. Directors on the season include Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton (Little Miss Sunshine), David Dobkin (Shanghai Knights), Jaffar Mahmood (The Great), M.J. Delaney (Ted Lasso), and John Hamburg (I Love You, Man), who each helmed two episodes. Keller wrote Machine Gun Preacher, Mirror Mirror, and Escape Plan, which are films that are very different from the tone or style we find in Stick. Still, Keller’s work on James Mangold’s Ford v Ferrari shows his appreciation for sports and how they capture the range of human emotion. The resumes of the writers and directors involved show a skill for comedy but include it within a dramatic and realistic storytelling approach, which helps Stick work as well as it does. I care about these characters and appreciate that while some of the twists in the plot are familiar, the story does not go in the direction of countless underdog tales told before it.
I loved watching this series, which works as a limited run ending with these ten episodes, or it could return for a second round of storytelling. Either way, Jason Keller’s series perfectly showcases Owen Wilson’s talent in balancing comedy and drama while delivering a great ensemble cast around him. Few series can get you to root for what seems like a sure thing, but Stick stacks great episode after episode with a good soundtrack and writing that makes you want to keep watching when the credits roll. With solid cameos from some famous golfers, intense sports sequences that raise the intensity, and a heartfelt core story about redemption and love, Stick is the perfect successor to Ted Lasso and is sure to be a big hit with fans. I loved this series.
Stick premieres on June 4th on Apple TV+.
Source:
JoBlo.com
