Mountainhead review: Billionaires more loathsome than the Roy family

James Cox

*Warning: There are spoilers for Mountainhead if you have not seen the film*

Succession creator Jesse Armstrong's first project since the HBO smash hit is the film Mountainhead, and somehow he has managed to come up with billionaires more loathsome than the Roy family.

As the world veers into an apocalyptic meltdown filled with violence and burning cities (somehow eerily believable), four billionaires gather for a snowy retreat at a luxurious Utah mansion, 'Mountainhead'.

A social media app called Traam (think TikTok on steroids) is fuelling the real-world violence that has destabilised countries, and its owner Venis (Cory Michael Smith) is the richest man on the planet.

Succession creator Jesse Armstong's first project since the HBO smash hit is the film Mountainhead, and somehow he has managed to come up with billionaires more loathsome than the Roy family.

An Elon Musk-type who still has his direct line to the US president, Venis is in denial about the damage his platform is doing and thinks only about the profits.

Randall (Steve Carell) is another billionaire whose desire to see the world go 'transhuman' is inspired by a bad medical diagnosis, and he needs to take advantage of Venis and Jeff (Ramy Youssef) to do so.

Jeff owns an AI verification app that has the power to curb much of the misinformation on Traam, but refuses to sell to Venis.

Jason Schwartzman is Soup Kitchen, or Soups, who is the only member worth less than $1 billion, hence the unfavourable nickname. He owns Mountainhead and serves as the mediator of the group.

However, they are all pawns to Randall and this leads to their weekend retreat taking a very dark turn.

The dialogue is succint and brutal at times as the four billionaires cruelly 'razz' each other.

Think Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel on a weekend away together.

They gleefully plot a 'coup' of the world that will put the concept of the nation-state at an end. However, they are also desperately ignorant of the real world, an actual line from the movie that gives the perfect example is: "Once one Palestinian kid sees some really bananas content from one Israeli kid – it’s all over!”

The concept is brilliant and the tension built up over the story keeps the film going, however it goes off the boil a bit towards the end.

It's no Succession but worth a watch, we give it three out of five stars.

Mountainhead is now available to watch on Sky Atlantic and to stream on NOW in Ireland