Our Hero, Balthazar is one of those movies that immediately puts you on edge, not because it’s loud or flashy, but because it feels too real. Like you’re watching something you shouldn’t be watching. Like a reenactment recorded on a phone that later becomes evidence.
Oscar Boyson’s debut drops us into the awkward, cursed headspace of two lonely teenage boys who collide online and make each other worse, then better, then worse again. It’s a pressure cooker of a film, the kind that thrives on uncomfortable silences, bad decisions, and conversations that make you want to sink into your seat.
Jaeden Martell plays Balthazar Malone, a wealthy New York kid whose entire personality is built around wanting to be seen as good. He posts tearful activist videos about gun violence, not because he fully understands it, but because he wants applause, validation, and maybe to impress a crush. Martell has been good for a long time, but this is something else. He brings a terrifying honesty here. The kid never stops surprising me. Every new project adds another layer. One of the best young actors working today, no question. You can see him growing in real time.
Across the internet is Solomon Jackson, played by Asa Butterfield in a complete inversion of every role people associate him with. If you’re expecting Ender Wiggin or Otis Milburn, forget it. Butterfield is almost unrecognizable here. He’s volatile, cruel, wounded, and scary in a way that feels plausible. Solomon is a deeply troubled loner with rage just waiting for someone to witness it. Not excuse it. Witness it.
The dynamic between them is the core of the movie, and it’s pure yin and yang. Two narcissists in wildly different fonts. One privileged and performative, crying into a webcam from a Manhattan penthouse. The other broke, abandoned, and radiating the kind of anger that grows in silence. They need each other more than either wants to admit, and the more time they spend together, the tighter the knot in your stomach gets. You can feel something bad coming. The movie makes sure of that.
The film plays like a strange remix of the school shooter subgenre without ever glamorizing it. It’s not interested in mythology or shock value. It’s interested in process. In loneliness. In how chronically online kids flatten violence into aesthetic and identity. This is an effective POV active shooter movie without actually being one. That’s what makes it unsettling.
Chris Bauer is absolutely repulsive as Solomon’s father, Beaver Jackson, a walking alpha male parody who feels ripped straight out of the algorithm. He’s a supplement-selling, porn-adjacent, ex-MMA grifter bad dad nightmare. Bauer is usually charming or funny, but here he’s just a complete piece of shit, and it works terrifyingly well.
Tonally, the movie does something gutsy. There’s an inspirational, almost uplifting score floating through some deeply upsetting material. It shouldn’t work, but it does. That weird juxtaposition keeps throwing you off balance. You’re laughing one minute, horrified the next. Incredibly funny stuff until it suddenly isn’t.
The film never reassures you. You’re never sure how far it’s willing to go, and that uncertainty drives the whole experience. Any possible end feels plausible, and that’s what keeps you locked in. The ending, when it finally hits, is fucking wild. It shows the true aftermath of a gunshot wound—unstylized, uncinematic, and brutally real. Morbid, yes, but undeniably effective.
What makes Our Hero, Balthazar stick is that underneath all the satire about privilege, social media, activism, gun culture, and masculinity, this is ultimately about two fucked up kids who just need a friend and find each other in the worst possible way. It doesn’t judge them. It doesn’t save them either.
It belongs alongside films like Spree, Red Rooms, and even The Dirties. Internet culture thrillers that understand how online identity and real-world violence bleed into each other. That’s becoming a niche, and this one feels like a standout.
What a debut. What a swing. Can’t wait to see what Oscar Boyson does next.
Jessie Hobson