"Mountainhead" Review

If you like your men behaving very badly and correctly believe Network is a documentary and American Psycho is a comedy, then the new HBO/Max Original film Mountainhead is here to reinforce your fears of gazillionaire tech bros and the generative AI deepfake world we're plummeting into.

Hugo "Souper" Van Yalk (Jason Schwartzman, Rushmore) has invited his three besties - collectively known as the "Brewsters" for never-explained reasons - to his new 21,000 sq ft, 7-bedroom mountain mansion outside of Park City, UT called Mountainhead (roll credits!) for a no stress, no deals, brofest weekend. Coming are Venis "Ven" Paris (Cory Michael Smith, May December), the owner of a web company called Traam (think Hooli if you're a Silicon Valley fan) and the Richest Man in the World; Jeff Abredazi (Ramy Youssef, Ramy), owner of AI company Bilter; and Randall Garrett (Steve Carell, Anchorman), a venture capitalist who helped the other startups in addition to running a company that sounds patterned after Peter Thiel's Palantir.

 Hugo's nickname "Souper" is because at only a half-billion dollars net worth (approximately 1/460th of Ven's tally) coming from a meditation app makes him the "poorest" and thus closest to needing alms from a soup kitchen and the not-so-subtle hazing of the shortest member of the quartet begins as they diss Mountainhead with slights like, "Is that supposed to be like The Fountainhead? Who was your decorator, Ayn BLAND?" They snowmobile and hike to a mountain peak where they write their net worth on their chests, don hats symbolizing their rank - Ven (crown), Randall (captain's hat), Jeff (sailor hat), Hugo (soup ladle on a chain) - then shout their wishes into the void.

The casual intentions of weekend are interrupted by constant news alerts on their phones about the unrest sweeping the world as generative AI tools released by Traam are being used to create fake videos of atrocities which are then sparking very real and lethal reprisals as tribal groups seeking payback respond to the fake videos. As death tolls rise, Ven doesn't seem particularly bothered by the fallout, saying that it's just a rough patch and that good content will drown out the bad. (As Tony Stark said, "Not a great plan.")

However, a solution exists as Jeff's AI tools could be used to detect and expose the deepfake videos being used to propagandize and radicalize people to violence. Ven wants to buy Bilter to integrate its fact-checking AI tools so he doesn't have to roll back the new features (nor take responsibility for what it's wrought), but Jeff doesn't want his creation subsumed into Traam. Unknown to the others, Randall wants the merger to happen because he's been given a terminal cancer diagnosis and believes that Ven is on the cusp of launching a transhumanist epoch where he will be able to be uploaded and live forever in The Matrix, so to speak.

As the world's governments begin to falter, the three who aren't Jeff decide this would be a perfect time to overthrown the Old World Order and install themselves as the oligarchs of a global technocracy powered up their tech companies endless reach into governments, militaries, power grids, etc. Realizing that taking over the world at once may be too much, they decide to start small with Randall launches a rolling brownout in Belgium and Zoom conferences with Argentina to discuss being taken over by them beginning.

While this goes on Jeff is worried about his girlfriend Hester (Hadley Robinson, Little Women) who has gone on to Mexico for what he calls "a sex party" but she retorts isn't that but "a party where people have sex." While he's troubled by the chaos, he still won't sell to Ven and when Randall fears his life as the Lawnmower Man is at risk, he proposes to the others that they kill Jeff because he's messing up their plans. Because morality doesn't exist in this dojo, they all agree, but because being a megawealthy tech broligarch doesn't necessarily come with competent murder skills, it devolves into farce.

 If this all feels ripped from the headlines it's because writer-director Jesse Armstrong (creator of Succession) only began writing the script in January 2025, filming for five weeks in March, and getting it finished and on HBO Max by May 31, 2025. However, it's to his great credit that he doesn't indulge in what 99% of Hollyweird would've done in their current rage state over the peasants voting incorrectly and make it into an obvious bash of Elon Musk and the Bad Orange Man. 

While there are some similarities to real people if you know who's who in the techocratic elite space, Armstrong chooses to craft a more general tale of wealthy male fear (a la David Mamet's Glengarry Glenn Ross) and ego, the risks of unchecked AI, the self-anointed regard techno bros have over the rabble, while leavening it with farcical attempts at violence and how even when your best friends try to murder you, you can move past it if there's a buck to be made. His dialog doesn't stop to Basil Exposition anything for the non-nerds so you either keep up with the rapid-fire or get left behind. He trusts the audience to follow enough to understand the base emotions fueling the characters.

The performances are all strong from deft comic performers, especially Carell who's Randall could be seen as a brother to his role in The Big Short which was criminally denied an Oscar nomination. I'm not familiar with Youssef or Smith (though he was Chevy Chase in Saturday Night), but they're good as well. Schwartzman, of course, can play these weasels in his sleep.

Perhaps a more deliberately developed (read: not filmed shortly after writing) script could've honed Mountainhead's intentions to a finer, deeper-cutting edge though the rapidly evolving capabilities of generative AI may've left whatever more time in scripting in the dust. Just last month Google unveiled their new Gemini AI video tool powered by Veo3 and it's capable of producing video with audio, sound effects, camera movement, etc. like this:

Sure, it has some jankiness like the text on the signs at the rally being gibberish, BUT what happens in 2028 when a video showing "[Disfavored Politician] BUSTED Drowning Puppies While Shouting 'I LOVE NICKELBACK!'" pops up on teh Intartoobz a month before the Election and it's amplified by corrupt legacy media outlets who eagerly covered up the last President's senility & family corruption. How will we be able to trust what we're shown anymore and who is going to get even richer and more powerful while having fun running the corps which will generate and disseminate these fabrications? While Mountainhead doesn't have those answers, it is willing to posit the question, albeit in the guise of a bro comic farce.

Score: 7/10. Watch it on HBO Max.