Tribeca Review: Our Hero Balthazar is an Uncompromising Satire About a Real Crisis

Oscar Boyson’s debut feature Our Hero Balthazar is a big swing that mostly works: an uncompromising satire about the crisis facing young men in America. Masculinity means something entirely different in red states than it does in the blue. Balthazar (Jayden Martel) is a privileged kid who lives in a $50 million dollar, 80th-floor New York apartment with an indoor pool. He takes to Instagram to make crying videos (think of the “Leave Britney Alone” viral video from years past). Still coming into his own thanks to a life coach, he’s given every advantage by an absentee father who lives in Westchester with his other family, as well as his mother Nicole (Jennifer Ehle), a Democratic fundraiser who leaves on his birthday to venture to D.C. with the hilariously named candidate Hakeem Adams (David M. Raine).

Across the country and political divide resides Solomon (Asa Butterfield), a hopeless kid in his 20s who is suckered into a multi-level marketing scheme to impress his absentee father (Chris Bauer), a former drug addict, amateur porn star, and MMA fighter now hawking a testosterone-booster. The two meet after Balthazar records a performative video to impress Eleanor (Pippa Knowles), a gun-control advocative whom he meets in a school-shooter drill at their private academy. When he shows Eleanor a video of a school shooting sent to him by Solomon, she naturally freaks out, leaves, and refuses to go with Balthazar to Texas to stop what might be another mass-killing.

What emerges can be viewed as a mean-spirited––although quite funny––satire of two young men in the middle of a crisis. Balthazar has everything and realizes that Solomon needing $10,000 to save the trailer he lives in with his grandmother is a lot for his community. Solomon straddles the line between being somewhat sympathetic and in need of help. He’s recently lost his job at the local convenience store for making the only female co-worker in the place feel uncomfortable when he talks about sex and cartoons.

Boyson (a collaborator of the Safdie brothers) directs Our Hero Balthazar from a script co-written by Ricky Camilleri. It’s an uncomfortable satire, throwing Balthazar––a kid with no real life skills thanks in part to another absentee figure, a life coach who has since started his own business––deep into the heart of Texas in an attempt to understand an Internet troll. It’s a comedy that makes a point that Scott Galloway frequently hits in interviews and podcasts: both of these kids represent a crisis in contemporary masculinity precisely because they lack healthy male role models. While this may be nothing new (Larry Clark’s Bully is noted as an inspiration), it’s certainly been accelerated by social media, easier access to guns than mental health resources, and the podcast industrial complex.

Where the film somewhat missteps is in a third act that, to its credit, doesn’t betray its satirical aim by turning into a soft buddy comedy. Boyson instead adheres to his initial premise with Balthazar running around his apartment like a privileged Arthur, trading alcohol for Xanax. While Balthazar is far from a crowd-pleaser, it sticks the landing on most of its cringeworthy humor. Martel and Butterfield are nearly perfect; the latter sports a heavy Texas accent, beard, and ginger hair that embody the kind of guy ultimately looking for a war just to prove he’s got what it takes to his fuck-up of a father. 

A difficult film to experience if taken seriously, Our Hero Balthazar reminded me of Atom Egoyan’s debut Next of Kin, which also featured a child of privilege catfishing and infiltrating a family. Both think they’re doing the right thing, even if that changes scene-by-scene and on the fly once they find themselves deeply embedded in the community. As in B.J. Novak’s fish-out-of-water comedy Vengeance (also set deep in the heart of Texas), those making policy for or telling the stories of “fly-over country” from the centers of power find themselves conflicted by a situation that’s far more complex than politics. Our Hero Balthazar is an effective entry point into a crisis that truly needs more coverage in both documentary and narrative cinema.

Our Hero Balthazar premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Festival.

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