Sound of Freedom (2023)

★★★½
Finished in 2018 and shelved by Disney after its acquisition of Fox, Sound of Freedom finally makes it way to theaters five years later. The movie's journey to the big screen comes to us by way of producer Eduardo Verastegui's tireless efforts to pry the distribution rights from Disney's clutches and raise funds through grassroots efforts to get this story in front of audiences. I’m glad all the hard work paid off. This movie was too important to remain hidden away in a vault somewhere collecting dust. It tells the true story of Tim Ballard, played passionately here by Jim Caviezel, as a former agent of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security who found the limitations of his employer's jurisdiction insufficient for him to make enough of a difference. Early on, he and a colleague comment on the number of pedophiles they have arrested. It's a high number, but the number of children they have rescued is far too few. Dissatisfied with the bureaucratic obstacles in his path, Ballard eventually struck out on his own and founded an organization that aims to rescue children and raise awareness of the sickening crime of child trafficking.

The movie opens with a fake audition for two children who have been targeted for abduction. Gisselle (Yessica Borroto) pretends to represent a Honduran modeling agency in order to lure Miguel (Lucás Ávila) and Rocio (Cristal Aparicio) away from their father Roberto (José Zúñiga). When Roberto returns to pick up his kids, he finds that the entire audition was a scam. Back in the U.S., Tim and his partner arrest a child predator and lock him up. Believing that more can be done than simply arresting a predator, Tim approaches his prisoner and reveals that he himself has similar sinister urges. It's all a ruse for Tim to arrange to buy a child and save him from a life of misery while capturing another member of the modern-day slave trade. That child is Miguel, who went from Honduras to Columbia to Mexico and now trafficked into the U.S. by his captors. Tim learns more about Miguel, who confides in the agent that his sister Rocio is somewhere back in Columbia. Feeling the need to bring the family back together and heal Roberto of his anguish, Tim flies to Cartagena to rescue Rocio.

Most of the action takes place in the coastal city and the interior of Columbia, which is controlled by terrorist groups who use children as sex slaves. Tim meets up with his contacts and gathers leads that could point to Rocio's whereabouts. This operation requires time and money, neither of which are in plentiful supply. For this mission to be a success, Tim must free himself of his ties to Homeland Security, so he resigns and carries out the rescue operation using whatever means necessary to reunite Roberto's family. Tim's experiences during the mission laid the groundwork for his Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.), which has sought to combat child trafficking and child sex slavery both at home and abroad. He makes no secrets about his motivations. As he poignantly declares during a critical moment, "God's children are not for sale." His Christian faith is deep and gets the right amount of screentime for him to express it fully. His family is also key to his determination. He and his wife (played by Mira Sorvino) feel blessed with a large and loving family, and he draws strength not only from his faith but also their faith in his work as an expression of the goodness that still exists in this world.

Though this is a film that falls squarely in the genre of faith-based stories, Sound of Freedom is mainly a thriller that properly highlights the horrible predicament of children trapped in this endless cycle. The rescue of Rocio may not have happened exactly as we see here. The point though is that Tim Ballard had seen enough while in uniform and was determined to do something about it. This story allows us to step into this world briefly to see how it operates and see how there are good people trying to push back. This movie condenses Tim's work into a rescue mission so that we can understand his drive, his objectives, his love of humanity and his intolerance of evildoers. I had never heard of O.U.R. before, and that likely would have remained the case had the producer not fought so hard to give this a proper release.

No movie is immune to criticism, and if someone could write an informed essay examining this movie's weaknesses with regards to storytelling and structure, then by all means do it. However, there has been a ridiculous attempt to smear the movie by associating it with QAnon, which is a movement that has pushed specific theories that are found nowhere in Sound of Freedom. There are no pizza eateries as part of the plot, nor is there any finger-pointing at secret societies who engage in abhorrent behavior. There is simply the sad reality that child sex trafficking exists in the world today. This movie is a reminder of that, but it is also assurance that child sex trafficking is not going unchecked. Leave it to media rags to use words like "paranoid" and associate the film with QAnon to discredit it. Make no mistake about it—this is a noble film that is trying to heighten awareness of a serious crime. There is no paranoia here. If the story isn't entirely accurate, it is only because this is still a movie and requires narrative thrust to be engaging.

Jim Caviezel has long been a solid actor. He can display emotional heft in one movie (Frequency) and be coldly calculating in another (Escape Plan). Here, under Alejandro Monteverde's capable direction, he expresses Tim Ballard's heroism fully. The actors playing the various child predators are appropriately slimy, but a few have charming attributes that are phony but necessary to ensnare unsuspecting children. Sound of Freedom is more than just a loose biopic. It is genuinely suspenseful. This is a rescue story with a hero who lacks the "particular set of skills" of Liam Neeson's character in Taken but brings other skills to the table. A better companion piece would be Lilya 4-ever, Lukas Moodysson's heartrending story that covers similar themes. I don't know why Disney didn't release this, and I won't speculate here as to why. Luckily, Angel Studios and the donors who contributed to this movie's long-awaited release can now let the movie stand on its own, C.N.N.'s attempt to take the wind out of its sails notwithstanding.

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