Mountainhead
2025
*½
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Cast: Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith, Ramy Youssef, Hadley Robinson, Andy Daly, Ali Kinkade, Daniel Oreskes, David W. Thompson, Amie MacKenzie, Ava Kostia
Four tech billionaire friends retreat to a luxurious mountain estate in Utah for a poker weekend, even as their AI-powered deep-fake technology plunges the world into chaos. Jesse Armstrong created Succession (2018–2023), the sharp and satirical TV show about super-rich and super-awful people who fight for power. No wonder his directorial debut, a satire about four billionaire assholes playing power games while the world burns, feels like old hat. The film is long, insufferable, and thoroughly uncinematic. There isn't a single idea Armstrong manages to convey through images; it's dialogue from beginning to end.
