So an edgelord and a rage-baiter stroll right into a bar… OK, that’s not precisely the plot of “Uncut Gems” EP and “Good Time” producer Oscar Boyson’s directing debut, “Our Hero, Balthazar.” However with these two characters, performed by Jaeden Martell and Asa Butterfield respectively, you already know you’re in for a thrillingly poisonous trip. The trailer has simply premiered for the 2025 Tribeca movie I known as a “propulsive and fascinatingly contradictory cross between gun-culture warning letter and Safdies-esque thriller.” Watch it beneath.
“Our Hero, Balthazar” has steadily been constructing buzz at word-of-mouth screenings since Tribeca, the place it was the primary runner-up for the Narrative part’s Viewers Award. That is certainly a very well-executed and assured satire that’s — abrasive? Sure! Discomfiting? Certain! — at all times entertaining. Co-written by Ricky Camilleri, the movie additionally stars Jennifer Ehle, Noah Centineo, Anna Baryshnikov, Becky Ann Baker, and Avan Jogia.
Right here’s the movie’s synopsis: “A headlong race by a world the place success might be measured in engagement and tragedy has change into content material, ‘Our Hero, Balthazar’ follows two uncared for teenagers thrown collectively by an opportunity on-line encounter. Privileged but lonely New Yorker Balthy (Jaeden Martell) Malone desires of changing into a hero, whereas struggling Texan Solomon Jackson (Asa Butterfield) seeks recognition by posting violent threats. When Balthy, in an act of misguided heroism, travels to Texas in an try and befriend Solomon and avert a potential tragedy, he’s drawn right into a harmful and thrilling new world. Regardless of their variations, each discover refuge from their crushing loneliness in one another’s firm, however for all Balthy’s good intentions, his choices are driving them near the precipice of catastrophe.”
And extra from my evaluate: “Boyson doesn’t solely peel away from the Benny-and-Josh-established aesthetic that’s now the anticipated parlance of millennial filmmakers searching for to seize an unvarnished, on-edge New York — Boyson, in any case, co-founded the Safdies’ Elara Footage earlier than the brothers break up creatively. The stylized filmmaking turns into its personal form of important standpoint right here, revving up the viewers and doubtless encouraging even a couple of within the room to endorse its agonized worldview through the film’s compelling craft. ‘Our Hero, Balthazar’ is each a cautionary story and an leisure, and the way Boyson straddles the excessive wire chopping between these two opposing forces is what makes this promising debut most fascinatingly stressed.”
Picturehouse and WG Footage open “Our Hero, Balthazar” in New York Metropolis on March 27 and in Los Angeles on April 3.