Our Hero, Balthazar – Review

Well then. Here we are. How to talk about this film? Less is going to be more. Featuring two absolute knockout main performances, Our Hero, Balthazar covers some seriously dark territory across the board, all while being bitingly sharp and even slightly satirical throughout. The film is also quite realistic, which is depressing, even with its satire edge. The comedic elements are subtle, and this is primarily a distressing psychological drama.

New York City high school kid Balthazar (Martell), or Balty, has a man’s name. He is a rich kid at a rich school, and most of he and his classmates have high profile parents. His genuine personality is entirely hard to gauge as he spends his time fake crying and overly emoting on social media for likes, which appears to be its own little world of victim/grief/sob stories and people sobbing.

As he lets tears pour down his face and barfs out a message about violence and a school shooting in Arkansas, he gets some dark personal messages from a user that he tracks to Texas and a kid named Solomon (Butterfield) who appears to be planning a violent event. At a school assembly, Eleanor (Knowles) catches his eyes, ears and mind with a rebuttal about gun violence and the rat race economy in general. Looking to impress this activist girl, Balty heads to befriend Solomon, and stop him from inciting additional violence.

This serious plot is sprinkled with swipes at social media, current societal focus and values, as well as family life, loneliness and relationships. Balty and Solomon are both deeply troubled in their own very different ways, and even share some common ground. The rich Balty has less excuses for his insane behavior, while as the film explores Solomon a lot of his behavior is at least understood, despite it not being acceptable either.

I would not call this movie a comedy despite some satirical moments that are designed to elicit a begrudging laugh response. Some people may laugh more but I found most of the funny bits to dry up pretty quickly in the beginning. It is a bit bleak, however it accurately reflects a ton about modern people of all ages, but especially for the youth and what it takes to be young these days.

This is expertly crafted, but how much you enjoy it as a viewer will definitely depend on how you handle what it throws at you. It is worth watching however for the two main performances alone.

This film is tough to compare to others.