Mountainhead movie review: Strange successor to Succession!

MountainheadOn JioHotstarDir Jesse ArmstrongCast Cory Michael Smith Steve Carell Jason Schwartzman Ramy YoussefRating 35By all accounts Irsquom willing to wager a bet writercreator Jesse Armstrong couldrsquove charged a bomb to simply continue making his stunningly Shakespearean series on the media industry Succession 201823 for HBO foreverSuch was its global appeal as a conversation starter Itrsquos to his creative integrity that he stopped at the fourth season Knowing that he had precious little to add without overstaying audiencesrsquo welcome perhapsWhich is the sort of call that makes one curious about which lunar crater Armstrong would land on nextWell itrsquos a miniature feature called Mountainhead set among four techbro corporate giants in a mountain estate mdash shot simply within 20odd days Basically hersquos filmed a play that would probably seem as exciting on stage as on screen no matter what its sizeAnd with anticipation so high mdash since itrsquos the successor to Succession after all mdash nothing no matter how good is likely to matchIn Bollywood terms call it the lsquoShaan effectrsquo if you like As in the perfectly fine entertainer that followed Ramesh Sippyrsquos SholayThe audiencersquos response eventually being an outcome of expectations what else And therefore plotwise I felt slightly shortchangedunderwhelmed sitting through Mountainhead post the first half once the characters have been suitably introducedItrsquos only when I caught this 140minute mockironic black comedy all over again mdash this time not as fixated with the story or comparisons in my head to the mountain resort episode five Kill List of Succession S04 mdash that I could truly appreciate this oneroom talkieMore so as commentary on tech and AI plus power in the hands of a selfappointed few who run both mdash it stands among the most elementally important dramatic thinkpieces on the way the world is what it isThe title Mountainhead like figureheads in a fictional ldquoMount Techmorerdquo of course is a play on Ayn Randrsquos book FountainheadWhich along with Atlas Shrugged if yoursquove read at too early an age you were surely blindly bowled over by Randrsquos libertarian idea of objectivism Rand was also scathingly writing in direct response to collectivismsocialism of her timesWith writerdirector Armstrong as the stinging fly on the fancy walls around four of the worldrsquos richest Silicon Valley dudes Mountainhead shows you the flip side of Randrsquos individualistic capitalismOr how the planet essentially its future canrsquot be left to the high IQ brains of a small bunch of billionaire brats with clear psychopathic tendencies access to subservient heads of states and a smug outlook towards the world that they canrsquot visualise humans as anything but potential marketsHow politically relatable is Mountainhead As much as Trump pushed up by plutocrats The moviersquos timely enough that had it dropped only a year later it could seem datedSuch is the accelerated pace of change caused by AI anyway Let it be the oddball document of the progressively transient times thenAll the more because you can spot obvious glimpses of tech publicfigures with each caricature in the film thatrsquos hard to wipe off your visceral memoryEven as they chill among buddies in bed they speak in startup jargon as if walkingtalking LinkedIn posts podcast episodes or in their boardrooms of courseYeah you can kinda stretch and see bits of Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates in an ever so slightly humanitarian techbloke Jeff Ramy YoussefOr perhaps a touch of a thoughtleader type Peter Thiel in Steve Carellrsquos Randal kinda obsessed with ldquouploading human consciousnessrdquoLikewise with the host with the least Souper Jason Schwartzman whorsquos only worth 521 million because he deals with a lifestyle consumable app could there be a hint of say Reed Hastings Netflix in him I donrsquot knowAt the centre of this powerdrunk badmaash company going berserk is a 230 billion dollarsrsquo worth newage social media entrepreneur Venis Cory Michael Smith looking stereotypically a cross between Elon Musk and Mark ZuckerbergThis megalomaniacrsquos unleashed an AI tool thatrsquos set the world on fire It makesspreads deepfakes Those deepfakes cause global unrest including in Gujarat where people are killing each other imagining desecration of religious sitesVenisrsquos buddy and former partner Jeffrsquos got an antidote to this AI While I write this the piece waiting to be read on my phone is the latest Time magazine cover story on how OpenAIChatGPTrsquos Sam Altman has come up with a similar antidote that verifies humans since we canrsquot distinguish them from AI anymoreThatrsquos how topical is the dystopian Mountainhead for all its obvious exaggerations But then again forget science fiction mdash as we speak doesnrsquot truth seem stranger than nonfictionAnd Armstrong is armed with that unique eye to suitably capture this strangenessJust recall that final episode from the first season of Black Mirror The Entire History of You about neural implants in human eyes that make you rewindreplay everything yoursquove watchedItrsquos the only episode that Armstrong wrote It remains the most memorable short from the classact series still Besides therersquos Succession of course that had me waiting for this film since its announcementFor nobody writes lines to rival Aaron Sorkin The West Wing simultaneously diving this deep with such elegant cynicism into intrigues that humans with lust for power are capable of that is nothing short of House of Cards by Beau WillimonThose two political shows havenrsquot been matched in the same scale yet Its successor should come from Armstrong Irsquod equally wait for it for as long He must patiently take longer than this movie though

Mountainhead movie review: Strange successor to Succession!

Mountainhead
On: JioHotstar
Dir: Jesse Armstrong
Cast: Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef
Rating: 3/5

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Home / Entertainment / Hollywood News / Article / Mountainhead movie review: Strange successor to Succession!

Mountainhead movie review: Strange successor to Succession!

Mountainhead On: JioHotstar Dir: Jesse Armstrong Cast: Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef Rating: 3/5

Trending Stories

Latest Photos

Latest Videos

Latest Web Stories

Mid-Day Fast

Mountainhead
On: JioHotstar
Dir: Jesse Armstrong
Cast: Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef
Rating: 3/5