Our Hero, Balthazar

What Critics Say

Our Hero, Balthazar

2025

Oscar Boyson

Asa Butterfield, Jaeden Martell, Chris Bauer, Jennifer Ehle ...

6.2

Comedy. Drama. Thriller

Comedy. Drama. Thriller

Eager to impress his activist crush, a wealthy New York teenager follows a lead to Texas, where he believes he can prevent an act of extreme violence.

	Media	Author	Review
		Owen Gleiberman Variety	"A screw-loose buddy movie for our time (...) 'Our Hero, Balthazar' captures how crying, for people of a certain generation, is now part of an online world where everything is performative."
		Ryan Lattanzio IndieWire	"Asa Butterfield co-stars in Oscar Boyson's propulsive and fascinatingly contradictory cross between gun-culture warning letter and Safdies-esque thriller."
		Frank Scheck The Hollywood Reporter	"Alternately disturbing and brutally funny, and ending with the sort of capper that perfectly encapsulates its provocative ethos, this marks an auspicious directorial debut for Oscar Boyson."
		Pete Hammond Deadline	"Jaeden Martell & Asa Butterfield Navigate Darkest Corners Of The Internet In Twisted, Comic And Disturbing Tale Of Two Teens"
		Tara McNamara Common Sense Media	"[It] is incredibly impressive and yet, so twisted that you almost have to hope that no one sees it (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Lisa Kennedy The New York Times	"[It] teases with the promise of a darkly intelligent film. Not unlike its protagonist’s tears, the effect is dismayingly performative"
		Kyle Smith The Wall Street Journal	"A black-comic acid bath that nods to so many contemporary concerns... The film may not propose a solution to any of our maladies, but it’s a bitterly convincing diagnosis"
		Marie Saadeh Exclaim!	"[Oscar Boyson] holds up the mirror to the absurdity of the cultural and political moment plagued by masculinity in crisis and the performance of social media (...) Rating: 8 (out of 10)"
		Olga Artemyeva Screen Anarchy	"Jaeden Martell in one of his best roles to date. The movie’s intonation can be both disturbing and devilishly hilarious"
		John Fink The Film Stage	"An effective entry point into a crisis that truly needs more coverage in both documentary and narrative cinema"
		Richard Whittaker Austin Chronicle	"An increasingly uneasy watch. However, it may be an essential one"

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