The maker of ‘Succession’ focuses his arrows again on hyper-rich

220 billion, 63 billion, 59 billion and 521 million: the four main persons of Satire Mountainhead At the start of the film, roar their ability against the mountain tops in the US state of Utah. The person with the highest amount gets a laurel wreath after this match ‘nurse’ for tech bosses. Would it be a coincidence that the winner, the owner of the fictional social media platform Traam, has the name Venis, what rhymes on ‘penis’? That the luxurious mountain villa in Utah where they are going to play poker for a weekend in the film Mountainhead hot, is already consciously a nod to The FountainheadAyn Rands famous ode to individualism.

In his directing debut, Jesse Armstrong, the creator of the much -winning hit series Successionhis arrows again on hyper -rich. This time on tech millionaires. His characters are an amalgam of types such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg or investor Peter Thiel. The kind of Techbro that also appeared in the last season of his satirical series about the billionaire family of Mediatycoon Logan Roy. It provides a film that at the same time feels sharp and easy -going. And therefore alternately entertaining and a bit boring.

While the four men in the villa pretend to breathe new life into their old friendship through a combination of heels, snacks, the world is flying around them. An update of Traam spits a sea of ​​lifelike deep fakes and unforgivable disinformation into the world, leading to genocidal violence, wars and market instability.

The four only get that suffering on their phone. They are busy with the secret agendas they took to the villa. For example, Venis (Cory Michael Smith) – under pressure from the outside world – is on the AI ​​of Jeffs (Ramy Youssef) company. He could steer the hate -spreading upgrade of his social media platform in the right direction. Jeff refuses a deal. The terminal tech investor Randall (Steve Carell) then wants to become immortal via Venis’ technology. And the « soup kitchen » (Jason Schwartzman) or millionaire of the group, wants to rake his first billion.

Record tempo

Mountainhead was made in a record pace. Armstrong had the idea in November 2024, less than a year later the film is finished. He was in a hurry for feared, among other things, that the way in which AI and the unbridled power of tech millionaires are discussed would be overtaken by changes in reality. Not unjustified and topicality of the subject certainly pays off. The film plays with the unease that many feel in the current super-fast AI developments. At times the scenario feels visionary when you consider that Armstrong wrote it before someone like Musk was allowed to attack US government spending. In Mountainhead We see how together with the chaos in the outside world, the Hybris in the Villa guests also increases. They are starting to imagine more and more concrete how they themselves can take over the leadership of parts of the world.

At the same time, the speed with which the film was made led to the satire not as sharp as it could have been. The first hour is mainly filled with ambitious sneer, pseudo-philosophical rattle and techbringo as « the antidote of bad tech, is good tech ». At times witty and well brought, but in the end it gets a bit boring. Also because the characters are and remain free. Succession proved that it is possible to have the viewer give for terrible figures when they feel laminated. That is missing here.

And just as it starts to become really interesting – and you get curious how a professional like Armstrong a world where tech millionaires really get all the strings in his hands will look and mocked – completely derailing things in a direction that is more slapstick than surprisingly. Thereby adds Mountainhead In the end, little ready for the many satires and parodies on unworldly, dull rich people with which viewers have been flooded in recent years.

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