Sound of Freedom puts us on the precipice of a new cavalcade of films. The recently founded Angel Studios was built to deliver faith affirming films to their clearly underserved loyal Christian audience. The Studio successfully extracted Sound of Freedom from Disney’s shelving, willing the story of Tim Ballard and his crusade against child sex trafficking to the big screen. Despite the depths of humanity on display, the movie pushes its message out to everyone with this mostly exciting thriller, because as the incredible tag line reminds us all: “God’s children are not for sale.”
After a squirm inducing intro into how child sex traffickers operate in Latin America, we meet Jim Caviezel’s Tim Ballard, working on his latest sting operation for US Homeland Security Investigations to catch the latest pedophile. Despite the soul sucking work of capturing the worst of humanity, Ballard remains steadfast, clearly called to the work by God and his supportive wife (Mira Sorvino). On this latest case, Ballard frees a little boy who reveals to the US agent that he has a sister still trafficked in South America. Reminding him of his multiple children, Tim convinces the US HSI to send him down to Colombia, where he makes contact with “Vampiro” (Bill Camp) a man working in the grey area of this underground cabal of evil to figure out how to find the young boy’s sister and save as many people as possible.
You’ll be “shocked” to learn that making films about pedophiles and child sex trafficking don’t exactly light up the box office because of the bleak, barely human evil. That being said, it’s pretty impressive how Sound of Freedom rises above those challenges. Director Alejandro Monteverde shows really smart restraint refraining from depicting the actual act. More importantly, he does take his time showing the really horrifying mechanics these trafficking predators use to lure kids into the trade. The opening sequence sets the tone immediately; I found myself cringing and squirming in my seat seeing what horrors young innocent kids are cruelly thrown into. There’s all these little details like the overly sinister code names for the kids (“Teddy Bear”, ewwww) or putting overly seductive lipstick on a 10 year old that set you on edge. Even though we don’t see the “acts” we see enough leading up to them to make the audience feel the despair without making them throw up and leave the theater.
Also, they smartly cast Jesus as the avenging angel. Few wear pain and empathy on their face better than Jim Caviezel, the crusader who can comfort the kids and strike fear in the hearts of the evildoers alike. Yes there’s really icky implied messaging of who the bad people are, but Caviezel’s overly Caucasian look really makes him angelic against these terrible traffickers he’s fighting to bring to justice, a more effective onscreen beacon than I was expecting it to be. Even though Caviezel is the hero, Bill Camp is the more compelling character here. The movie is at its most interesting when he enters the fray, and Camp so expertly navigates the ugly aspects of his character he comes across maybe a little too empathetic for the person he’s portraying.
“God’s children are not for sale.” Man, Liam Neeson wishes he could have had a line that good in his Taken monologue. Angel Studios picked a hell of a movie to burst onto the scene as a major studio player. Go big or go home I guess. Let the Sound of Freedom ring y’all.
PS. There’s a “special message” during the credits. You don’t have to see it (it’s a sales pitch), but for those curious who’s financing movies like Sound of Freedom, listen VERY closely to what the pitch is, and the movie’s messaging seems a little less black and white.