Mountainhead

What would happen if Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and Tim Cook gathered in a $20 million cabin high up on a snow-covered mountain for a calm, relaxing lads' weekend far from the stress of everyday life and the challenges of the tech industry? Some clever things would naturally be said, some ingenious ideas might be hatched, but there is a significant part of me that doesn't believe Musk, Page, and Cook wouldn't try to murder the Facebook founder by locking him in a sauna and pouring petrol through the crack in the door.

However, that is exactly what happens in Succession creator Jesse Armstrong's talkative comedy about four tech moguls who reconnect after several years apart, gathering in a luxury estate for a weekend to enjoy good company and good food. The day before departure, however, the richest of the four launches a new AI-based algorithm that enables the world's most advanced deep fakes, which basically sets the whole world on fire. Fake news about bombings, terrorist attacks, city coups, and political murders spreads like wildfire while the four men settle down in front of the fire to drink some hot chocolate, and in the midst of all this, everyone is now trying to navigate the shitstorm that their childhood friend has unleashed, with panic alternating with proactivity, leading to desperation, which leads to complete madness.

Succession is good. For my part, however, two seasons were enough, as I simply grew tired of the criminally monotonous plot, in which a bitter billionaire father tries to find a way forward in a tough business world, while his children all believe themselves to be indispensable to the family business and thus constantly overestimate their own importance, whereupon their sullen, bitter father shoots down their dreams as well as their attempts at hostile takeovers - time and time again. Unfortunately, Mountainhead falls into the same trap, even though it differs thematically from Succession. Here, it's more about four men with enough geopolitical and globalist power to burn down the world, and who are arrogant enough to do so. It is a fierce satire on today's tech climate, where a handful of old men (including Page, Cook, Musk, and Zuckerberg) control large parts of the world with their services and apps, and Armstrong hardly holds back when things get out of hand.

I am very fond of how Armstrong writes dialogue. His ability to make fast-paced verbal diarrhoea feel natural and, above all, dynamical, is reminiscent of Aaron Sorkin, and just like in The Newsroom or The Social Network, it's fun to see how a small, tight group of quick-witted, skilled character actors use the dialogue like boxing gloves, engaging in verbal sparring throughout the two hours that this film lasts. Mountainhead does get a little drawn out, though. Just like in Succession, Armstrong has trouble "killing his darlings," and two hours might have been better as 90 minutes instead. That said, this is a quirky, twisted satire with successful dialogue and good acting that I am more than happy to recommend.