Serve the Country
2025 · 10m · USA
Directed by Fabian Velasco, Milos Mitrovic
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, tense
A fast-talking man insists he's a former tennis prodigy and runs a series of small schemes to score a racket and donations. The film treats stolen valor like a sport, and the sport like a con.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Stolen valor plus a tennis racket is exactly the kind of premise the awards circuit would refuse to fund — which is why I want it.
Stolen valor reframed through tennis — a sport with no battlefield and infinite vanity — is the kind of conceptual aikido I admire. Manitoba Dupieux with early-Safdies awkwardness is a real bet.
Stolen valor reframed through tennis, with a fast-talking man trying to score a veteran discount on a racket, is a delicious double-meaning premise. The Manitoba-Dupieux comparison is a flag I trust.
Reviews
Delivers both dark comedy and double meaning to the sport of tennis and the concept of stolen valor.