Our Hero, Balthazar Ending Explained And Movie Recap: Why Does Solomon Befriend Balthazar?

I mean, there has to be a point where we stop and ask ourselves: how much more screwed up does this world need to be before the people at the top decide to do something about it? We are losing touch with reality more and more, and while the internet can be a great place, it’s also one of the worst things to ever exist. It questions your self-worth 24/7, and it’s far too difficult to stay sane when you don’t have much of a social life yourself. That’s when people cling to the internet the most, looking for an ounce of validation. Add the messed up gun laws of the United States in the mix, and you’ve got yourself a spectacular train wreck. Oscar Boyson is known for being a wonderful patron to Indie films, often collaborating with the Safdie brothers. This time, he’s decided to make a film himself, and his debut feature “Our Hero, Balthazar” is genuinely one of the best dark comedies coming out of this decade. Boyson walks on a very thin rope as the plot is so tender and questionable that it can get horribly problematic any second, and yet, he makes it work. I don’t mean the film is not horribly unsettling by any means, but the way the plot constantly tricks and plays with your mind is simply lovely, and the larger social commentary just feels so relevant and on point. I never pictured Asa Butterfield to play a troubled Texan incel so well, and Jaeden Martell as the screwed up teenager also delivers a once in a lifetime performance. On top of it all, “Our Hero, Balthazar” has some seriously funny moments, but the humor never feels out of place, and all in all, you made a solid choice in both watching the film and coming here to see me deconstruct everything that unfolds in it. 

Spoilers Ahead

What happens in the film? 

Balthazar Malone is a filthy rich teenager with a personal life coach, Antony,and a mother who will spoil him as much as he wishes to be spoiled. However, Antony has somewhat given up on him, and his mom, Nicole, has her priorities set on seducing a would-be senator, Hakeem. Balthazar is pretty lonely, so he spends his free time shooting himself sobbing and crying over the rising gun violence in America, and he’s become quite the performative influencer on Instagram. However, he doesn’t actually care about the problems he talks about, and the reason he still acts this way is to feel like he belongs to a community. We see Balthazar stop crying as soon as he stops filming himself, and he just goes back to his normal routine of seeking validation from strangers. But things take a turn when Balthazar spots a classmate, Eleanor, and grows a little crush on his classmate, Eleanor. Simultaneously, he also starts engaging with an internet troll called the Deathdealer, who claims to be a school shooter. The troll sends CCTV footage to Balthazar, which shows a horrible school shooting incident in Arkansas, but Balthazar is somewhat amazed by it. When the troll stops replying to him, Balthazar creates a fake account of a woman, and gathers some explicit pictures to engage with him. Deathdealer takes the bait, but he still asks to hear the voice of the woman he’s chatting with. Being the creep Balthazar is, the dude records his own mother and uses an AI to use her voice to talk dirty with the troll. Meanwhile, the apparent school shooter on the other side of the screen is nearly not as tough as he claims to be. Solomon lives with his sick grandmother in a trailer, and he has an obsessive relationship with guns his father gave him to hide a long time ago. The poor guy is also amazed by his absentee father who’s now running a pyramid scheme along with a man named Supes, and these two sell supplements that can apparently boost your testosterone enough to fight a war. Solomon’s dad, Beaver, is a scumbag who takes money from him to sell the trash he advocates for, and, like a good son who just wants his dad’s approval, Solomon agrees to do the same. Meanwhile, Balthazar tries to impress Eleanor by showing her his crying videos, and when she calls him insincere, his desperation goes a notch above, and he shows her the Arkansas shooting video. While Eleanor is absolutely horrified, Balthazar tries to creep on her and make out, which prompts Eleanor to call him out for what he is before storming out of his house. Desperate for Eleanor’s approval, Balthazar decides to go meet the school shooter and befriend him, to show her that he’s not a fake and he actually cares about something. 

Why Does Solomon Befriend Balthazar?

Antony tries to stop Balthazar from going away, since he’s brought his friends over to celebrate Balthazar’s birthday weekend, wondering how much he gets paid to do this. However, Balthazar needs to prove himself to Eleanor, seeing Antony stop him, he starts crying and acts like a childhood sexual abuse victim—implying that Antony is a pedophile. Antony tries to stop Balthazar from doing this in front of his friends, but he eventually has to let him go. Cut to the State of Texas, where Solomon is thrilled that he’s finally meeting his hot internet date. However, Solomon is deeply disappointed when Balthazar makes up this story that the woman he’s supposed to meet had to cancel because her sister is in the hospital. Balthazar is lucky that Solomon buys the story, but he gets suspicious when Balthazar takes his mom’s call, and the voice isn’t new for both these dudes. Solomon freaks out and starts attacking Balthazar, and all the guy has to say is that he wanted to be his friend while running away from the supposed school shooter. Now for a guy like Solomon who has no friends, and who just got fired from his job at the gas station because his co-worker, Taylor, felt uncomfortable around him—hearing that somebody wants to be his friend is huge. So Solomon forgives Balthazar, and he’s thrilled that he came all the way from New York just to be friends. But Balthazar is here to be friends with a school shooter and stop him from massacring a bunch of kids, and Solomon doesn’t really want to kill kids. The disillusionment Balthazar starts to get when he comes across Solomon’s grandma is pretty funny, since it’s hard for him to imagine that this dangerous guy cares for an old lady. When Granny talks to Balthazar about the rent hike and how they might need to move, he is so unaware of poverty that he thinks it’s good news, as Balthazar thinks they need to move out of this dump and buy a “real house.” Solomon shows his new friend a rough sketch which is supposed to be his plan to execute the school shooting, but this supposed school shooter is also obsessed with a cartoon character named Jimmy Phantasm and he cannot stop talking about it. 

Why does Beaver humiliate Solomon? 

Solomon takes Balthazar out to show off all the guns he has, and when he teaches Balthazar to shoot, it’s a life changing moment for the city boy. Balthazar has never felt this kind of a high before, and he’s immediately addicted to blowing up stuff. When Solomon realizes  his new friend is not physically strong enough to use the heavier guns, he pitches his dad’s supplements to Balthazar. Surprisingly, Balthazar agrees to order a whole lot of supplements thinking this might stop Solomon from blowing up kids. Solomon jumps and dances like a baby, which reduces his aura points even further in Balthazar’s eyes. As they munch on some burgers and fries, Solomon shows a porn video to Balthazar, starring none other than Beaver himself. The poor guy really is proud of his father no matter what he does. Solomon then goes to the gas station to show Taylor that he’s got a friend, only to be called a loser after he scares Taylor with all the crying tricks he learnt from Balthazar. When Taylor insults both of them and threatens to call the cops, they leave, but Solomon is over the moon because apparently Taylor now at least sees him as a person. Solomon then takes Balthazar to the school he was planning to target, but when Balthazar actually aims at a cleaner with a loaded gun, Solomon quits the trash talk and admits that he isn’t going to shoot anybody anytime soon. Even though the truth disappoints Balthazar, he asks Solomon to tell Eleanor that he changed his mind because of this friendship. But Eleanor sees through Balthazar’s crap, and she knows that he must’ve paid this guy to say all this. She also threatens to get a restraining order against Balthazar, which is pretty much the final nail in the coffin of Balthazar’s love life. 

To numb the pain in their hearts, both the boys try some drugs, and Balthazar gets very excited and fidgety. Solomon takes him to meet his dad in a pub, where we see Beaver being a very proud father for the big sale his son made. However, Beaver tries to manipulate Solomon to invest the commission he made, rather than letting him pay rent so that his son and mom aren’t homeless the next day. Surprisingly, Balthazar sees the scam for what it is, but Solomon is so desperate for his dad’s attention that he refuses to break out of the bubble of denial. But things get messy when Balthazar mentions how Solomon sent him the video of the Arkansas school shooting, and Supes loses it. Supes’ cousin died in that very same incident, and he throws both these boys out of the club. But Beaver isn’t ready to let Solomon go just yet, as he keeps pressing him to invest the money. When Solomon stands up for himself and tells his father that he’d rather pay the rent, Beaver gets abusive and beats him up. Solomon is humiliated in front of Balthazar, and when they get home and he starts crying, the sobbing influencer is the one who feels embarrassed to see someone cry for actually valid reasons! 

Is Balthazar Truly A Hero? 

When Balthazar calls him an embarrassment, Solomon turns vindictive, and decides to kill his dad the next morning. Solomon pulls up with a bulletproof jacket, helmet, and an assault rifle in front of Beaver. Now the old man is terrified, and he does what he does best, sweet talking his son into withdrawing. But as soon as Solomon puts the gun down, Beaver tries to attack him, but Balthazar brings out his pistol, which prompts Beaver to step back. Balthazar is terribly disappointed at Solomon for not going ahead with the homicide, and he is disgusted further when Solomon gets home and starts to cry again. He also rips the purchase slip apart, which was Solomon’s only capital to have a roof over his head. Solomon jumps Balthazar in rage, and Balthazar grabs the assault rifle—and the gun goes off while they wrestle each other. The bullet pierces the thin wall and hits Solomon’s grandmother in the next room. The only person keeping Solomon grounded, and perhaps the only one who loved him is now dead. Balthazar runs away, knowing fully well that he’s responsible for this, and Solomon now actually grabs his heaviest rifle to hunt Balthazar down. When one of the neighbours complains about the noise, Solomon toasts his window with bullets. But unlike Solomon, Balthazar isn’t fuelled with rage, so he is using his brain more efficiently. As Solomon finally becomes the person Balthazar pictured him to be, a maniac who will shoot anyone or anything, Balthazar sneaks up on him and blows his head off. When the cops take Balthazar into custody, he shows them the texts between him and Solomon, and the map of the school he had drawn, to prove that Solomon was, indeed, a sociopath who wanted to kill kids. Since Solomon and Granny are both dead, there’s no one left to challenge Balthazar’s claims, and his story actually holds up. A week later, Balthazar is hailed as a nationwide hero as he prepares to sit down for an interview with a prominent news host. However, Eleanor still isn’t convinced that he’s actually a good guy, and we see Balthazar checking his phone repeatedly, hoping for a reply. But Eleanor never replies, and even though Balthazar practically manufactured a fake murderer and took his life, he still cannot get the girl he wants. The irony of the film is that Balthazar didn’t stop a psychopath; he created one, killed him, and convinced everyone he was the hero barring one. It tells you a lot about how fragile most people are, and how low they are willing to stoop just to feel like they mean something to the world. All the riches of the world wasn’t enough for Balthazar, and he had to do something that makes him somebody people talk about. In the end, this freak of a dude falls right back into his usual loop, sobbing and crying in a video over a cause he couldn’t care less about. 

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