Sergey's Fortune
2018 · 16m · USA
Directed by Peter Mackie
Genres: crime, dark comedy, thriller
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, tense
A hard-boiled Little Odessa mafia hitman, already on thin ice with his boss, finds his desert mission spiraling out of control when his car breaks down and the only help around is a pair of obnoxious vlogging YouTube bros eager to film everything.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Everyone's tired of noir pastiches, so why is a hitman movie actually *working* here? Because Peter Mackie had the audacity to let YouTube bros crash the genre entirely — the collision isn't clever winking, it's genuinely anarchic, and somehow that makes the stakes feel real again.
The film walks a tightrope between satire and sincerity that most genre-aware shorts fumble; Mackie's editing rhythm between the hitman's dead-eyed professionalism and the vloggers' manic energy shows real understanding of how tone operates as formal language.
The masterstroke is the sound design choice — those YouTube notifications and ring-light hum creeping into what should be a tense noir score — it's such a specific, economical decision that instantly communicates the entire culture clash without explanation.
Reviews
Comedy, Suspense — a Ukrainian mafia hitman's mission goes awry when two obnoxious YouTube stars interfere, threatening to expose his botched job through vlogging.
An award-winning short film about a hitman for the Little Odessa mafia whose mission is compromised by a pair of obnoxious YouTube stars.
Festivals
- Short Film Slam (Baltimore) 2019, Grand Prize
- Philadelphia Short Film Slam 2019, Movie of the Month
- Baltimore Short Film Slam 2019, Movie of the Month
- Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival 2019