TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Jesse Armstrong, creator of the popular HBO series "Succession," has a new drama, this time, a comedy about powerful and wealthy people vying for power and control. It's a made-for-TV movie called "Mountainhead," and it centers on a quartet of very rich tech wizards who gather at a private home in a remote area of Utah to play some poker and also dream and scheme. The stars include Steve Carell and Jason Schwartzman, and it premieres on HBO this Saturday. Our TV critic David Bianculli has this review.
DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: It's winter in Utah, and snow is everywhere. The man who's hosting a very exclusive, remote poker weekend at his just-built mountaintop chateau is Hugo, played by Jason Schwartzman. His friends call him Souper for reasons we'll learn eventually. But as "Mountainhead," the new HBO movie written and directed by Jesse Armstrong, begins, all we know is that Hugo, or Souper, is ridiculously rich, with a net worth estimated above 500 million. Yet, at this particular poker table and this gathering of titans from the tech industry, Souper is the low man on this financial totem pole. Steve Carell plays Randall, an old-school software and hardware tycoon in the Bill Gates mold. Ramy Youssef plays Jeff, who made his fortune designing sophisticated AI programs. They're both worth more than 50 billion each. And Cory Michael Smith plays Venis, a sort of loose cannon Elon Musk type, who's the richest man in the world. His company, Tram, has just unleashed upon the world a program guaranteed, even designed, to wreak havoc. At the very start of "Mountainhead," a news report lays out the basics.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Political turmoil escalated again today across Central Europe and South Asia, with several more outbreaks of violence being directly attributed to new features released in limited beta form last week on social media platform Tram. Tram founder Venis Parish (ph) has pledged his company will act with all due consideration before launching the final-release version of the new tools to its 4 billion users globally.
BIANCULLI: As the others arrive for the weekend, Souper welcomes them to his brand-new home and instantly is ridiculed by the much wealthier and more sarcastic Jeff.
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JASON SCHWARTZMAN: (As Souper) All right. Come on in. Come on in. Come on in.
RAMY YOUSSEF: (As Jeff) Look at this place, Souper, man.
SCHWARTZMAN: (As Souper) Thank you. Wow, right?
YOUSSEF: (As Jeff) No, no, no. I just said look at it. No compliment implied.
SCHWARTZMAN: (As Souper) You know, it was an incredible value proposition. Had to shoot a few puppies to get Mountainhead ready for the weekend, but, you know...
YOUSSEF: (As Jeff) Mountainhead.
SCHWARTZMAN: (As Souper) Yeah.
YOUSSEF: (As Jeff) Oh, like fountainhead Mountainhead? Was your interior decorator I'm Bland (ph)?
SCHWARTZMAN: (As Souper) Oh, my God. Here we go.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHWARTZMAN: (As Souper) All right.
BIANCULLI: Here we go indeed. As the tech titans keep checking their phones, news keeps arriving about chaos generated globally by the program Venis has unleashed, which allows users to create deepfake images, even news reports, that most viewers perceive as real. Instead of feeling alarmed or guilty about what he's done, Venis is proud and defiant.
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CORY MICHAEL SMITH: (As Venis) Look. First time people saw a movie, everybody ran screaming because they thought they were going to get hit by a train. The answer to that was not stop the movies. The answer was show more movies.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Yes.
SMITH: (As Venis) We're going to show users as much [expletive] as possible until everyone realizes nothing's that [expletive] serious.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Yeah.
SMITH: (As Venis) Nothing means anything, and everything's funny.
BIANCULLI: The movie seems to be heading towards a "Black Mirror" type of futuristic parable. But then Armstrong, whose gift for twists and turns and shifting alliances was so key to the success of "Succession," takes a sharp left turn into "Dr. Strangelove" territory. The four technical wizards look at the global unrest and start musing about how, if they pooled their technical and financial resources, this might be a great time for them to make a power move and overthrow the United States. Jeff doesn't like the idea, but Venis is all for it, and even Randall warms to the possibilities.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) Like a coup d'etat coup. The U.S.
SMITH: (As Venis) It would be challenging.
YOUSSEF: (As Jeff) Yeah.
SMITH: (As Venis, impersonating whining sound) Techno autocrats have stolen my NPR. Oh, but then guess what? Schools are working and crime's way down and, oh, my God, I think I like these guys.
YOUSSEF: (As Jeff) And we're talking about the U.S. - right? - with the military, the aircraft carriers, the Marines. And how do we take them on exactly? We slap them with Soup's turbot?
STEVE CARELL: (As Randall) I'm pretty deeply embedded in terms of hardware, software, payment rails, wages.
SMITH: (As Venis) Yeah, right. What military operational capabilities does the U.S. state have absent our cooperation if we went bad goblin?
CARELL: (As Randall) If I pulled the plug, open the back door, nothing flies. Nothing moves. Uncle Sam is left with a few unpaid grunts, and they're pea shooters.
SMITH: (As Venis) Yeah. We'd swarm them with their own kill drones in 20 minutes.
BIANCULLI: With that, "Mountainhead" becomes a completely different type of movie, and in Armstrong's hands, it's not through yet. The surprises that follow are too good and too unexpected to reveal, but you'll want to see them for yourself. "Mountainhead," like its quartet of central characters, is extremely unpredictable and very, very rich.
MOSLEY: David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed the upcoming HBO movie "Mountainhead." Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, comic, actor and writer Sarah Silverman. Whether she's tackling sex, abortion, being Jewish or everyday absurdities, she's known for pushing boundaries to land a deeper truth and a laugh. We'll talk with her about her new comedy special, "PostMortem," which is a bold and moving exploration about the deaths of her father and stepmother just nine days apart. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram - @nprfreshair.
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MOSLEY: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson (ph). Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.
(SOUNDBITE OF ADRIAN GALANTE'S "THANKS A MILLION") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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