‘Our Hero, Balthazar’ Trailer: Jaeden Martell and Asa Butterfield Are Edgelords with a Twisted Obsession

So an edgelord and a rage-baiter walk into a bar… OK, that’s not exactly the plot of “Uncut Gems” EP and “Good Time” producer Oscar Boyson’s directing debut, “Our Hero, Balthazar.” But with those two characters, played by Jaeden Martell and Asa Butterfield respectively, you know you’re in for a thrillingly toxic ride. The trailer has just premiered for the 2025 Tribeca film I called a “propulsive and fascinatingly contradictory cross between gun-culture warning letter and Safdies-esque thriller.” Watch it below.

“Our Hero, Balthazar” has steadily been building buzz at word-of-mouth screenings since Tribeca, where it was the first runner-up for the Narrative section’s Audience Award. This is indeed a really well-executed and confident satire that is — abrasive? Yes! Discomfiting? Sure! — always entertaining. Co-written by Ricky Camilleri, the film also stars Jennifer Ehle, Noah Centineo, Anna Baryshnikov, Becky Ann Baker, and Avan Jogia.

Here’s the film’s synopsis: “A headlong race through a world where success can be measured in engagement and tragedy has become content, ‘Our Hero, Balthazar’ follows two neglected teens thrown together by a chance online encounter. Privileged yet lonely New Yorker Balthy (Jaeden Martell) Malone dreams of becoming a hero, while 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 attempt to befriend Solomon and avert a possible tragedy, he is drawn into a dangerous and thrilling new world. Despite their differences, both find refuge from their crushing loneliness in each other’s company, but for all Balthy’s good intentions, his decisions are driving them close to the precipice of disaster.”

And more from my review: “Boyson doesn’t entirely peel away from the Benny-and-Josh-established aesthetic that’s now the expected parlance of millennial filmmakers seeking to capture an unvarnished, on-edge New York — Boyson, after all, co-founded the Safdies’ Elara Pictures before the brothers split creatively. The stylized filmmaking becomes its own sort of critical point of view here, revving up the audience and probably encouraging even a few in the room to endorse its agonized worldview via the movie’s compelling craft. ‘Our Hero, Balthazar’ is both a cautionary tale and an entertainment, and how Boyson straddles the high wire cutting between those two opposing forces is what makes this promising debut most fascinatingly restless.”

Picturehouse and WG Pictures open “Our Hero, Balthazar” in New York City on March 27 and in Los Angeles on April 3.