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Summary Four billionaire friends reunite during worldwide economic turmoil.
Directed By: Jesse Armstrong
Written By: Jesse Armstrong
Mountainhead
66
4.3
Where to Watch
Coming Soon
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Summary Four billionaire friends reunite during worldwide economic turmoil.
Directed By: Jesse Armstrong
Written By: Jesse Armstrong
Where to Watch
Coming Soon
Not available in your country?
ExpressVPN
Get 3 Extra months free
$6.67/mth
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 30 Critic Reviews
66
67% Positive
20 Reviews
20 Reviews
30% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 30 Critic Reviews
66
67% Positive
20 Reviews
20 Reviews
30% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Armstrong’s version of tech-bro bantering is a lot more literate and zingy than actual tech-bro bantering would be, otherwise the picture would be rather a bore. After a while, it begins to evanesce, like ice-breath does in the mountain air.
Part of the fun of watching Mountainhead, the entertaining first feature film from “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong, is marveling at the antics of the tech bros who already run a good chunk of the world, and want to run more. Part of the horror is how realistic it all seems. Part of the disappointment is how far it falls into “Three Stooges”-level farce.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 32 User Ratings
4.3
28% Positive
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
34% Mixed
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
38% Negative
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 32 User Ratings
4.3
28% Positive
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
34% Mixed
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
38% Negative
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
If there’s a moral here, it might be that the only thing worse than a competitive billionaire is a bored one.
In some ways, “Mountainhead” (rhymes with “Fountainhead”) feels as much a public service as an entertainment. So thanks for that, Jesse Armstrong. When, in the farcical, action-oriented second half, some attempt to execute a … plot, they bumble and argue and push each other to the front. It is an old kind of movie comedy, and works pretty much as intended.
It’s a comedy, and a brutally dark one, that draws blood and appalled laughter for two-thirds of its running time before jumping the shark in the final stretch. Once again, a brilliant TV writer finds the compact format of a two-hour movie more challenging than expected.
While “Succession” was all about delusion, with the Roy children cluelessly thinking the family business needed them while everyone maneuvered around their childish stunts, Mountainhead is all about the cruel intentionality of men who actively choose to burn down our world and just might have the competence to do it.
Mountainhead is a talky movie and I tend to like talky movies. But at some point in the nearly two-hour running time, it just becomes boring.
Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef and Cory Michael Smith play super-rich tech bros who gather at the titular home to hang. While they watch the world disintegrate in a major economic crisis (due to their own AI software), they plan ways to make their power even greater. Actually, almost all they do is banter with continuous jargon that’s sometimes confusing. Luckily, the actors are all fully invested in their characters, embracing the arrogant **** that they are. Writer/director Jesse Armstrong is famous for creating “Succession” and his fascination with the elite takes an even more disgusting tone here. While the energy of the actors and Armstrong’s direction keeps it moving briskly, the dialogue gets tiresome and ultimately these melomaniacs are more contemptable than sympathetic.
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It’s basically ‘Devs’, except that everyone is Nick Offerman and nothing happens.
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It starts out well, it paints an interesting picture of how the self appointed Masters of the Universe see themselves. Some of the dialogue is snappy and occasionally reminiscent of Succession (Was your interior designer Ayn Bland?). The second half however seems to descend into farce and feels hard to believe, even for these megalomaniacs. The acting is solid but no more than that. Maybe some more time spent on the script could have made it better?
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32 minutes and 19 seconds. The time I had to stop watching this obnoxious gobbley **** (and I worked in tech). No character development, everyone unlikeable and just made me queasy. Enjoy!
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