movie review of sound of freedom

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“Sound of Freedom,” the movie of the moment , has a message first, and a story second. Its message is to get us to care more about the horrors of child sex trafficking. It does that by showing queasy sequences of kids in danger, being carted around by slimy adults, and making us remember everyone’s faces. Then it gives us a weary hero, Tim Ballard, an American man whose superpower is that he cares. This father and husband cares so much that he leaves his job at Homeland Security ten months before earning a pension. Instead of only catching pedophiles, as he has done nearly 300 times before, he goes to Colombia and undercover to help rescue children. This man is played by a gentle and gravely serious Jim Caviezel , who shoulders this message’s suffering just like when he played Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson ’s “ The Passion of the Christ .”  

The story is true, but it barely comes to life with such a telling. Which is a shame, not just because it’s uncomfortable to be numbed by these themes, but also because director Alejandro Monteverde well-clears the low bar for filmmaking one expects from movies that are message-first (and often come with similar faith-driven backers). Take away the noise surrounding it, and “Sound of Freedom” has distinct cinematic ambitions: a non-graphic horror film with what could be called an art-house sensibility for muted rage and precise, striking shadows derived from an already bleak world. If “Sound of Freedom” were less concerned with being something "important," it could be more than a mood, it could be a movie. 

All on its own, “Sound of Freedom” is a solemn, drawn-out bore with a not particularly bold narrative stance—caring about the safety of children is roughly the easiest cause for any remotely decent human being. Previous films like “ Gone Baby Gone ” and “ Taken ” have also banked on that tension, showing how easy it is to be invested in a story when children are stolen and put into uncertain danger. But while being so committed to such solemnity and suffering, the truncated storytelling by co-writers Monteverde and Rod Barr neglects to flesh out its ideas or characters or add any more intensity to Ballard’s slow-slow-slow burn search for two kids in particular (Lucás Ávila’s Miguel and Cristal Aparicio’s Rocío) whose faces haunt him. The “true story” framing only gives it so much edge before that, too, is dulled.  

This world is so fraught with worry about the children that it seems to avoid creating tension elsewhere, and so it places Ballard in dull scenes opposite gullible one-dimensional creeps; his undercover missions, which sometimes have him speaking like the pedophiles he is pursuing, are more about the audience’s discomfort than his danger. There are hardly any mind games to be played, just the settings of sting operations made from a broad idea of how this would happen in real life.   It's one anti-climactic moment after another, and while it's intriguing how Monteverde leans away from violence or machismo, it puts little else in its place. ( For anyone gearing up to see "Sound of Freedom" because the poster has Caviezel holding a gun and a glare, this isn’t that kind of movie. )

Handsomely stark scenes are often reduced to three or four lines of dialogue, including the eureka moment of how Ballard gets involved in the process. A work buddy asks him how many children he’s saved, so Ballard changes his line of work. Mira Sorvino , as Ballard’s wife Katherine, plays a character who is credited at the end as inspiring his whole journey, but we only hear from her a couple of cliche sentences at a time. We at least get to hear more from Bill Camp , playing a confidant for Ballard. Camp has a gutting monologue about being at the heart of darkness of child sexual abuse. He’s also there to say the movie’s title and sets up Ballard to say its catchphrase, which you can now buy as a bumper sticker: “God’s children are not for sale.”  

With his blonde hair cutting through the movie’s gray and black palette, Caviezel is a crucial anchor for this hollow character study to be taken as seriously as possible. It's an intriguing, restrained performance but loses its appeal parallel to how the movie doesn’t develop Ballard beyond being a symbol. A casual YouTube search on the real Ballard shows that he’s a far more outspoken, hyper type than we see here. It suggests a different tone for such a character-focused story, and one wonders why the makers were weary of it.  

“Sound of Freedom” takes place in, and posits to be, a tough conversation piece about the world of child sex trafficking, but it’s hardly any more informational than a horror movie about bogeymen. A few factoids about the pervasiveness of modern slavery are shared in text at the end, and there’s a note about how Ballard's dedication helped pass legislation that made international cooperation on such stings more possible, but these notes are overshadowed by “Sound of Freedom” yet again being misguided and making the cause about itself. As the end credits play, Jim Caviezel re-appears to say how the makers of “Sound of Freedom” believe this movie could be the “ Uncle Tom’s Cabin for 21st-century slavery.” He says that the children shown in the movie are the real heroes but spends most of the time trying to empower you, the people, to spread the word, scan the QR code, and buy more tickets so other people can see this movie and put an end to this horror. But there’s little transparency here about how seeing Monteverde's film can help stop child sex trafficking, as this movie suggests. The suspiciousness of "Sound of Freedom" is queasy itself. 

Now playing in theaters. 

Nick Allen is the former Senior Editor at RogerEbert.com and a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film Credits

Sound of Freedom (2023)

Rated PG-13 for thematic content involving sex trafficking, violence, language, sexual references, some drug references and smoking throughout.

131 minutes

Jim Caviezel as Tim Ballard

Mira Sorvino as Katherine Ballard

Bill Camp as Batman

Kurt Fuller as Frost

Gerardo Taracena as El Alacrán

José Zúñiga as Roberto

Scott Haze as Chris

Gary Basaraba as Earl Buchanan

Eduardo Verástegui as Paul

• Alejandro Monteverde

Cinematographer

• Gorka Gómez Andreu
• Brian Scofield
• Javier Navarrete

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‘Sound of Freedom’ Review: In the Land of Child Traffickers

Starring Jim Caviezel, this movie tells a story of child trafficking and the people combating it. But its muted tone ultimately undercuts its solemn sense of mission.

• Share full article

By Glenn Kenny

The first 30 minutes or so of this picture are queasy for several reasons. After announcing itself as based on true events, “Sound of Freedom” depicts its hero, the Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard, apprehending a pedophile. Another agent, discussing their line of work and musing that “it’s a messed up world,” wonders why they’re not rescuing the children peddled by traffickers. Ballard, played by Jim Caviezel, gets a notion. He coddles the pedophile and sets up a sting. This nets him just one child.

The queasiness derives from the contemporary-thriller vibes of the police procedural material. They feel inappropriate. Then there are the scenes in which actual child actors perform being prepped for provocative pictures by adult groomers. What are the ethics of depiction here? The makers of this film initially seem to be grappling with how to properly tell this story. (It should be noted that the real-life Ballard has been accused of exaggerating his rescue narratives .)

“Sound of Freedom” settles on a tone of piety. Bill Camp as a sinner turned Samaritan (he gives the film’s best performance) relays his conversion moment to Ballard: “When God tells you what to do, you cannot hesitate.” As Ballard’s sense of mission grows, Caviezel is increasingly bathed in saintly light. “God’s children are not for sale,” he intones. In Colombia, he arranges a bigger sting, and after that, the narrative diffuses into an improbable “Heart of Darkness” style river journey. Only kind of dull.

The director Alejandro Monteverde does have some sense of flourish, what with several single-point perspective shots and considered dissolves.

So it’s hard to tell if this movie avoids any conventionally exciting set pieces out of scrupulousness or just lack of inspiration. Oddly, the picture’s muted tone ultimately undercuts its solemn sense of mission.

Sound of Freedom Rated PG-13 for themes, violence, language. Running time: 2 hours 11 minutes. In theaters.

‘Sound of Freedom’ Review: Jim Caviezel Anchors a Solidly Made and Disquieting Thriller About Child Sex Trafficking

It's been sold as a "conservative" thriller, but you don't need that mindset to find it compelling.

By Owen Gleiberman

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All of that, let’s be clear, is insane nonsense. Yet let’s assume that, like me, you’re not a right-wing fundamentalist conspiracy theorist looking for a dark, faith-based suspense film to see over the holiday weekend. (The movie opens July 4.) Even then, you needn’t hold extreme beliefs to experience “Sound of Freedom” as a compelling movie that shines an authentic light on one of the crucial criminal horrors of our time, one that Hollywood has mostly shied away from. The film was completed in 2018 and then shelved by Disney (after it acquired 20th Century Fox, the film’s original studio). It was finally bought back and is now being distributed independently.   

One of the purposes of a movie like “Sound of Freedom” is to sound the alarm, in the way that a dramatic feature film can do and that journalism often can’t. It takes us into the forbidden zone. It taps our primal emotion of empathetic terror. Yet “Sound of Freedom” isn’t a work of art like Lukas Moodysson’s “Lilya 4-Ever” (2002), the one great movie that’s been made about sex trafficking. (No one saw it. But it’s extraordinary.) This is a genre thriller. That said, it’s an urgent and honest one, and Caviezel gives his most committed performance since “The Passion of the Christ.” He’s seasoned now, with the smoldering aura of a more sensitive Clint Eastwood. He knows how to underplay the rage and despair, and how to make the drama of going undercover into something lifesize.     

In a sequence that’s suck-in-your-breath devastating, Roberto (Jose Zuniga), a single father in Honduras, agrees to let his 11-year-old daughter, Rocio (Cristal Aparicio), and her 7-year-old little brother try out for a music competition show that’s being overseen by Katy-Gisselle (Yessica Borroto Perryman), who is professionally poised and glamorous, and therefore seemingly trustworthy. He’s instructed to drop the kids off at an apartment, where there are a dozen other child contestants inside, and to return a few hours later. When he does, the place is dark and abandoned. He’s been fooled. And those kids are about to enter hell.

Special Agent Ballard, meanwhile, is in the midst of entrapping his umpteenth Internet consumer of child porn. Ballard has been on the beat for 12 years and has captured some 280 pedophiles. But what haunts him isn’t just the awfulness of these crimes, the horrific videos he has to watch. It’s that he’s catching culprits without rescuing the children.

He wins the trust of his latest sicko by taking him out of his holding cell and implying that he himself is also a secret pedophile. In this way, Ballard is able to discover a link in the trafficking chain, and he launches an operation to nab the trafficker. When he does, at the Mexican border, he saves the young boy from that opening scene.

But what about the boy’s sister? She’s still trapped in the nightmare. And this eats away at Ballard. It becomes his mission, his obsession. He must save her. Ballard and his wife, Katherine (Mira Sorvino), have six kids. Rocio, in the film’s Christian view, becomes an extension of their family. All children are God’s children, and are therefore all of our children. Or something.

But this is faith-based piety laid over a situation that didn’t need it. Ballard has made a decision to go after the traffickers themselves, a nearly impossible task that’s not backed by the Homeland Security apparatus; his boss gives him one week and 10 grand. But as he travels down to Colombia, the film comes alive as an undercover thriller.

But Ballard must ultimately travel down river, à la “Apocalypse Now,” into the jungles of the Nariño Province, a rebel stronghold where the chief rebel, named Scorpio, has made Rocio his slave. Ballard and Vampiro are posing as U.N. doctors; that’s how they gain entrée to the rebel camp, which is also a cocaine factory farm. The director, Alejandro Monteverde, stages this sequence without hyping the danger. It’s not a glorified “Rambo” movie or a Netflix thriller pretending to be serious. When the deliverance we’ve been seeking arrives, it feels earned. In a conventional pulp way, we’ve glimpsed the heart of darkness. We’ve seen something about our world that makes the desire to “take action” seem more than an action-movie gesture.

Reviewed online, July 1, 2023. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 130 MIN.

• Production: An Angel Studios release. Producer: Eduardo Verástegui. Executive producers: Jaime Hernandez, Patrick Slim Domit, John Paul Dejoria, Carlos Martinez, Anthony Robbins, Sean Wolfington, Whitney Kroenke, Sybil Robson Orr, Tim McTavish, Brian Norton, Delmont Truman, Matt Stover, Gladys Bolivar, Carlos Alvarez Bermejillo, Cecilia Coppel, Paul Hutchinson, Mickey O’Hare, Leo Severino, Christopher Tuffin, Renée Tab.
• Crew: Director: Alejandro Monteverde. Screenplay: Rod Barr, Alejandro Monteverde. Camera: Gorka Gómez Andreu. Editor: F. Brian Scofield. Music: Javier Navarrete.
• With: Jim Caviezel, Bill Camp, Cristal Aparicio, Mira Sorvino, Eduardo Verástegui, Yessica Borroto Perryman, Javier Godino, Gustavo Sanchez Parra, Kurt Fuller, Gerardo Taracena, Gary Basaraba, Jose Zuniga, Kris Avedisian, Manny Perez, Scott Haze.

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‘Sound Of Freedom’ Is a Superhero Movie for Dads With Brainworms

By Miles Klee

“Based on a true story,” I heard from somewhere across the theater.

The familiar words had appeared on screen, and an elderly man had taken it upon himself to read them aloud, to the rest of a sizable audience seated for a matinee showing of the anti- child-trafficking thriller Sound of Freedom , starring Jim Caviezel. For the seasoned moviegoer, this phrase is a joke — we know that cinema will stretch almost any “truth” to the breaking point — and the rank insincerity of such a pronouncement is the foundation of the prankish opening titles of Fargo . But this crowd, I could tell, would view the events depicted over the next two-plus hours as entirely literal.

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Sound of Freedom lives up to that anticipation. It’s a stomach-turning experience, fetishizing the torture of its child victims and lingering over lush preludes to their sexual abuse. At times I had the uncomfortable sense that I might be arrested myself just for sitting through it. Nonetheless, the mostly white-haired audience around me could be relied on to gasp, moan in pity, mutter condemnations, applaud, and bellow “Amen!” at moments of righteous fury, as when Ballard declares that “God’s children are not for sale.” They were entranced by what they clearly took for a searing exposé. Not even the occasional nasty coughing fit — and we had no shortage of those — could break the spell.

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Then you have Caviezel, bleached blond to match Ballard’s buff, clean-cut Mormon profile. Performance-wise, he’s stuck on a note of world-historical grief, either crying or staring with bloodshot eyes as he attempts to convey the scale and weight of the tragedy before him. The unambiguous hero of the piece, Ballard invokes parenthood as his motivation or an argument to get the cooperation he wants — “What if it was your daughter?” is practically his catchphrase — yet aside from a dialogue-free breakfast scene, he never interacts with his offspring. And if Mira Sorvino, who plays his wife Katherine, spent more than a day on set, you’d never know it: she’s there for all of two minutes, offering brief words of encouragement while Ballard spends weeks undercover as a louche sex tourist in Central America. She, too, evidently had a personal stake in joining this film, telling the Washington Examiner this week that she has “met so many child survivors and my heart burns for them.”

Compared to this nonsense, Sound of Freedom is relatively grounded in our universe. But that mainstream accessibility makes it valuable as a recruitment tool, much as generic “ Save the Children ” campaigns proved gateways to far-right conspiracy theories about a secret cabal of evil elites conducting blood rituals. On the QAnon message board Great Awakening this week, adherents celebrated the movie’s box-office success (it quickly made back its modest budget of around $14 million and out-earned the latest Indiana Jones sequel on July 4, its premiere date, after the franchise blockbuster had been out for several days) while crowing that “ demons ,” including movie theater employees annoyed by the demographic it pulled in, were miserable at their victory.

“Do you see how more powerful we are than the legacy news?” wrote one board user. “We are the news now!” On a different thread, someone attempted to prove that Donald Trump ‘s endorsement of the film on Truth Social on Thursday was connected to a random Q post from 2018 (because of the time stamps on each). Some discussed efforts to get “normies” who are “in need of awakening” to see Sound of Freedom , including with the assistance of a promotional program that allows customers to buy tickets for strangers . “Crimes against children will unite us all. Eyes are opening,” read one optimistic post , while another was more emphatic still: “We are witnessing true divine intervention.”

It matters, too, that Sound of Freedom almost never saw the light of day. Completed in 2018, no studio would take it for fear of losing money, according to producer Eduardo Verastegui — with Netflix and Amazon among those who passed. It finally found distribution thanks to Angel Studios, a Utah-based media company that crowdfunds original films and TV series that “amplify light.” (Although founded by Mormon brothers who originally created a content-filtering service to prevent children from seeing violence, nudity and profanity, it claims no formal church affiliation .)

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Meaning it will surely do no good to point out Sound of Freedom ‘s hackneyed white savior narrative. Or its wildly immature assumption that abused and traumatized children go right back to normal once the bad guys are in handcuffs. Or that it enforces stereotypes about trafficking that Angel Studios itself says are less than accurate. To the film’s intended viewers, these cannot be flaws — they’re the whole appeal.

There is visible suffering all around us in America. There are poor and unhoused, and people brutalized or killed by police. There are mass shootings, lack of healthcare, climate disasters. And yet, over and over, the far right turns to these sordid fantasies about godless monsters hurting children. Now, as in the 1980s Satanic panic, they won’t even face the fact that most kids who suffer sexual abuse are harmed not by a shadowy cabal of strangers, but at the hands of a family member . To know thousands of adults will absorb Sound of Freedom , this vigilante fever dream, and come away thinking themselves better informed on a hidden civilizational crisis… well, it’s profoundly depressing. Worse still, they’ll want to spread the word.

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Sound of Freedom Reviews

Overall, Sound of Freedom is politically charged - it’s trying to shed light on a very real world-wide issue but due to lack of character development, bad acting and long run time it might fail to entertain and engage you as a viewer.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 22, 2024

And yet, for a film about a man engaging in precarious subterfuge among deep-jungle guerilla traffickers, it’s weirdly boring, its tension and intensity diluted by cornball overtures... and Caviezel’s long, slow, brooding stares.

Full Review | Nov 3, 2023

Monteverde's visual elegance is undermined by a script full of unnecessary clarifications, and underlinings. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 16, 2023

It is a good, compelling story, but is it true? After a lot of fact-checking, I found out much of the story is not true, and the hero is significantly different in reality than the way he is depicted in the movie. The stink of QAnon pervades this movie.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Oct 16, 2023

Alejandro Monteverde directs a film with a solid narrative and elegant staging. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 11, 2023

"Sound of Freedom" is a thought-provoking and emotionally charged film that is both socially relevant and artistically impressive.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10 | Oct 8, 2023

As it turns out, Sound of Freedom is all bark, but it has no bite. Despite raising awareness on a difficult, but important subject matter, Sound of Freedom becomes a victim of its own lack of ambition.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 28, 2023

... if we're honest, the movie is particularly mediocre or perhaps even bad, or very bad, depending on your mood (and beliefs). [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Sep 25, 2023

If this flick wasn’t being used as a battleground in the Great Culture War this week, I’d forget I ever saw it within six months.

Full Review | Sep 21, 2023

Sound of Freedom's over dramatic approach and conservative vibe when it comes to dealing with such a tough subject matter keep it from being taken as more than a flimsy based on true events search and rescue story.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Sep 19, 2023

A deeply unappealing mixture of the sleazy and the self-righteous, the film isn’t exploitative in the generic shoot-’em-up manner of a Liam Neeson vigilante pic — it’s too pious for action.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 8, 2023

It’s refreshingly unaffected. The storytelling is routine. It warrants neither its hard-core disciples nor its worst enemies. Ignore the dishonest huffing and puffing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 7, 2023

By being so focused on the Message, they leave out any other aspect that might have served the film. The irony of all this is that if they had made a good movie, their precious Message would have been transmitted better. Full review in Spanish.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Sep 6, 2023

A thunderously crass and manipulative movie that is hampered by erratic pacing, pantomime bad guys and an overfondness for shots of Caviezel weeping God-fearing, manly tears.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 3, 2023

Jim Caviezel is a one-man scourge of child predators in this well-meaning thriller that doesn’t entirely deserve to be written off as culture-war propaganda.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 1, 2023

It’s bizarre, unsettling and yet – in the filmmaking equivalent of turning wine to water – bracingly dull to boot.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 1, 2023

Ballard is the infallible risen Christ who can never do wrong. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 31, 2023

The call-for-action message is definitively more important than the final result. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 31, 2023

If Sound of Freedom blows your mind, it may be down more to the disorientating lack of a dramatic arc than learning what the MSM apparently don’t want you to know.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 31, 2023

Simply shut off all the noise about this film and go and see an entertaining film with a powerful message.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 31, 2023

• Angel Studios

Summary After rescuing a young boy from ruthless child traffickers, a federal agent learns the boy’s sister is still captive and decides to embark on a dangerous mission to save her. With time running out, he quits his job and journeys deep into the Colombian jungle, putting his life on the line to free her from a fate worse than death. Based o ... Read More

Directed By : Alejandro Monteverde

Written By : Rod Barr, Alejandro Monteverde

Sound of Freedom

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Tim ballard, mira sorvino, cristal aparicio, javier godino, lucás ávila, yessica borroto perryman, katy, giselle, manny perez, eduardo verástegui, samuel livingston, gustavo sánchez parra, kris avedisian, josé zúñiga, carlos gutiérrez, hector lucumi, mauricio cujar, gary basaraba, earl backman, gerardo taracena, valerie domínguez, critic reviews.

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• DVD & Streaming

Sound of Freedom

• Biography/History , Christian , Crime , Drama

Content Caution

In Theaters

• July 4, 2023
• Jim Caviezel as Tim Ballard; Mira Sorvino as Catherine Ballard; Bill Camp as Vampiro; Cristal Aparicio as Rocio Aguilar; Lucás Ávila as Miguel Aguilar; Yessica Borroto as Giselle; José Zúñiga as Roberto Aguilar

Home Release Date

• October 3, 2023
• Alejandro Monteverde

Distributor

• Angel Studios

Movie Review

Roberto Aguilar made one mistake.

He believed that Giselle was who she said she was; that the charismatic woman was the founder of the talent agency Discover Your Dreams. She told him that his two children—Rocio, 11; and Miguel, 4—might be perfect for it.

Roberto, a loving, hard-working welder in Honduras, perhaps saw her interest as a stepping-stone to a better life for his children. “I believe Rocio may have the talent to be in the entertainment business,” she tells Roberto.

But Giselle isn’t in the talent business. She is in the sex-trafficking business. By the time Roberto returns to a rundown hotel to pick up his kids after their day-long “audition,” Giselle is long gone, Rocio and Miguel with her.

And they might have been gone forever but for the determination of one guy.

Tim Ballard is a good man doing a very hard job for the Department of Homeland Security: tracking down pedophiles in the United States who prey upon trafficked children. He’s caught 288 of them, including the latest, an extremely nasty fellow named Oshinsky.  

Ballard craftily coaxes critical information regarding Miguel’s whereabouts out of that trafficker, rescuing the boy.

And that’s when he learns about Rocio, by now on her way deep into the jungles of Colombia after being sold off to a crime kingpin. Suddenly, busting perps in the United States isn’t enough for him. He wants the green light—and the funds—to head to South America to rescue her.

“We’re Homeland Security,” his boss tells him. “You know we can’t go off rescuing Honduran kids in Colombia.” Then he adds, “Look, the boy is back with his father. That’s a career capper. Take it, and move on.”

“I can’t,” Tim says. “I don’t think you understand what I’m asking you. Sure, this job tears you to pieces. And this is my one chance to put those pieces back together.”

And with that, he boards a plane to Cartagena, Colombia, determined to rescue a little girl who’s been vacuumed into darkness unimaginable.

Positive Elements

After Tim returns little Miguel to his grateful father, Roberto, the man tearfully speaks of his daughter, Rocio, saying, “Could you sleep at night knowing one of your children’s beds is empty?” That encounter and those haunting words prove to be the catalyst that ignites Tim’s quest to locate and extract the little girl.

Tim goes to extraordinary lengths to save Rocio. The first step of the plan involves impersonating a millionaire and setting up an island as a sex-trafficking destination. That part of the plan nets many traffickers and the rescue of some 54 children.

Rocio isn’t among them. The sting operation does, however, yield intel on her whereabouts. She’s being held in a mountain camp run by some very, very bad men. Not only is the camp physically remote, but these people are so bad that no one goes there—not the authorities, not the government, not anyone.

But Tim and one of his allies in Colombia, a reformed former cartel money man named Vampiro, hatch a long-shot plot: They pretend to be medical personal vaccinating people against a cholera outbreak. It involves taking a boat trip deep into the jungle and then pulling off their impersonation of medical professionals. Both risk their lives to find this one little girl.

Tim uses his own finances, too. When Tim heads to South America, he’s initially given $10,000 for the operation from his boss. He burns through that money quickly, then quits his job and uses his own resources to continue financing his dogged pursuit of Rocio.

Information during the credits tells us that by the time Tim left Colombia, he and his team had rescued more than 120 children and arrested more than a dozen sex traffickers.

Spiritual Elements

There’s not a ton of overtly spiritual content here. But in one critical and powerful scene, Tim quotes Jesus’ warning in Luke 17:2: “Better a millstone be hung around your neck and you be cast into the sea than you should ever hurt one of these little ones.”

It’s clear, then, that Tim is motivated at a deep level by his faith. Anyone researching Tim Ballard’s life will find that he’s a Mormon, though the film never references his particular faith explicitly.

We repeatedly hear the phrase, “God’s children are not for sale.”

While the film itself doesn’t connect these dots, it’s hard not to think of Tim’s fierce, indefatigable pursuit of Rocio as a metaphor for Christ’s pursuit of us. Tim goes into one of the darkest places imaginable to emancipate one trapped little girl, just as Jesus went to an even darker place to save each and every one of us.

Sexual Content

The film’s entire plot obviously revolves around sex trafficking of children.

During Giselle’s initial photo shoot with Roscio, Miguel and perhaps a dozen other children, Giselle has them pose provocatively and suggestively. The children think that they’re just doing photos as part of the talent search, but obviously the photos will be used on traffickers’ websites.

A guy in a chat on the Dark Web posts pictures of children and says creepily, “Here it is, gentlemen. My spring sampler.”

Vampiro tells the story of his “conversion” out of a life of crime. He hired a prostitute, only to find out after the fact that she was just 14, and that she was trafficked when she was just 6 years old. His conscience is stricken, and he changes his ways when he realizes that he doesn’t want to be someone contributing to destroying the lives of children.

Giselle and other women wear some revealing outfits. We briefly see the outside of what looks like a strip club in Tiajuana. Tim and Vampiro often meet in clubs with people dancing intimately and sensually in the background. Multiple conversations revolve around sex clubs and sex trafficking hotspots around the world.

Violent Content

The children abducted by Gisella are kept in a steel freight container (think railroad box car) as they are shipped from Honduras to Colombia. They’re given water, but it’s clear that they’re kept in the container, screaming and crying, for days.

Once Rocio is delivered to her captors, She’s branded on the back of her neck with a tattoo declaring who owns her, much like a cattle brand. We see her wincing in pain as the tattoo is applied.

The film never actually depicts sexual assaults against children. But one of the movie’s most disturbing scenes shows an adult man shutting the curtains of his hotel room with 4-year-old Miguel sitting on the bed. The man has just told the boy that he must do everything the man asks, or his sister may be harmed. We later learn that the little boy was held in sexual slavery in Tijuana, Mexico, for three months.

Another similar scene in Colombia shows the crime lord, called The Scorpion, about to crawl into bed with a child. Tim is hiding in the room and jumps the man. A violent scuffle ensues in which Tim ultimately strangles the man to death.

Still another heartrending moment involves Tim (as part of his job) watching videos of children being sexually assaulted. We see tears well up in his eyes as he narrates it for his report.

A trafficker wants to have his foul way with a little boy.

Tim is chased by men shooting at him and a child he just rescued. Pursuit and gunfire persist when they’re on the boat and then in an SUV fleeing the remote mountainous jungle of Colombia.

Stateside, Tim threatens to extradite a perpetrator to Colombia for trial. If the man ends up in prison there, Tim warns, he’ll be castrated and raped every day.

Later, we see a still photo of a pedophile killed in prison in that country, his head lying in a pool of blood.

A montage of authentic-looking, black-and-white surveillance videos shows children literally being abducted right off the streets of (presumably) Central American cities.

Crude or Profane Language

We hear three uses of the s-word, as well as three uses each of “a–” and “a–hole.” There is one use each of “h—” “d–n” and “d-mmit.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Multiple characters smoke and drink throughout the film. Vampiro, in particular, is rarely without a cigar. We also hear some verbal references to the drug trade in Colombia.

Other Negative Elements

None, other the fact that every aspect of the story here takes place in a seedy underworld that requires Tim and his team to pretend to be just as horrific as the perps they’re pursuing.

Let’s be blunt: Sound of Freedom is a brutal film to watch. But it also might be the most important movie you see this year.

Sex trafficking, we hear in the film, is the fastest-growing international crime network the world has ever seen.

“You can sell a 5-year-old kid five to 10 times a day for 10 years straight, every day. Ordinary people don’t want to hear it. It’s too ugly for polite conversation. But meanwhile, over 2 million children a year are being sucked into the deepest recesses of hell.”

Sound of Freedom isn’t a movie you watch for entertainment or escape from the summer heat. It’s movie you buy a ticket to because you’re willing to enter into the ugliness of this societal scourge. It’s a movie you give consent to shock you out of complacency. It’s a movie that can’t help but light the fuse on the question, “What can I do?”

Most of us won’t, probably, go to the lengths that Tim Ballard did. But a movie like this, as hard as it is to watch, could serve as a searing catalyst to look for ways that you can help combat human trafficking in your city, your state.

Because, as Ballard says, “God’s children are not for sale.”

Adam R. Holz

After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.

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• What Is Cinema?

Sound of Freedom: The Wild True Story Behind 2023’s Most Controversial Film

What is the Jim Caviezel –led action drama Sound of Freedom, exactly? A solid independent action film , which has made a surprising amount of money since its release on July 4? A moving true story about a real American hero? A dangerous gateway into misinformation and conspiracy? A gamble that’s paid off beyond anyone’s wildest expectations?

For director Alejandro Monteverde, the answer is simple: Sound of Freedom was a calling. He says he sat down to write the movie in 2017, after seeing a segment on an evening news show—” 60 Minutes, 20/20, Dateline, I used to record them all”—about child trafficking. “I watched it and I couldn’t sleep,” he tells me in an interview. “I knew about human trafficking. I just didn’t know about child trafficking for sexual exploitation.”

The next day, he felt he needed to write a film about the issue. With cowriter Rod Barr, he spun a fully fictional screenplay called The Model, about a monied, free-wheeling guy who discovers an underground trade in sexually exploited children, then starts buying the kids back into safety. “If I’d kept making a complete fiction, I wouldn’t have any of these attacks,” the Mexico native says somewhat ruefully.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, a producer on the still-nascent movie asked Monteverde if he’d heard of Tim Ballard, a former homeland security special agent who had started to make waves for a nonprofit he founded, Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), which reportedly had a hand in rescuing trafficked children. “So I Googled him,” Monteverde says.

The online results were plentiful and included a glowing CBS News feature from 2014 on Operation Triple Take, a joint action between OUR and the Colombian government that reportedly rescued 123 trafficked people—55 of whom were children. “And I was like, Wow, I would love to meet this guy,” Monteverde said. “So I met him and I saw that his story surpassed my fiction.”

With Barr, he rewrote the script. Now the film would depict a heavily fictionalized take on the Colombian rescue from a few years before.

According to investigative journalist Lynn Packer , Ballard had long been seeking a wider platform for his and OUR’s activities. In 2013, he and a group of filmmakers sought funding from conservative political commentator Glenn Beck for a reality series that would depict the rescue of trafficked children. Though the series never came to fruition, some members of the production team made a documentary about Ballard, released in 2016 and called The Abolitionists , that gave Ballard even more mainstream legitimacy. Soon, he was speaking at organizations like Google .

But according to Erin Albright, an attorney and longtime adviser to anti-trafficking task forces, Ballard and OUR aren’t actually central to the international fight against human trafficking. “The majority of the [anti-trafficking] field views them as fringe,” she tells me. “They peddle sensationalism…and they fundraise off it.”

In 2018, when Monteverde was making his movie, these critiques weren’t part of the conversation. “I never in a million years imagined that this would be political,” he said of the film, which would become a Ballard biopic—albeit one that takes great liberties with the facts. After all, he says, “I saw the piece [on child trafficking] on the mainstream media … I always thought that this was going to be a film that we would all come together over.”

If this movie had been released shortly after it was made, that might have happened. Sound of Freedom was independently produced for a reported $14.5 million and financed mainly by a group of Mexican backers, according to the filmmakers. But like many other projects, the film lost its distributor when Disney acquired 21st Century Fox in 2019. Sound of Freedom remained on the shelf until it was picked up by Provo, Utah–based Angel Studios in 2023, with a plan to release the film in theaters around the country.

Several critical things happened in the years between the film’s wrap and its arrival in theaters. In a series that kicked off in 2020, Vice journalists Anna Merlan and Tim Marchman began a probe of Ballard and OUR, discovering “a pattern of image-burnishing and mythology-building, a series of exaggerations that are, in the aggregate, quite misleading.” In a subsequent report , they alleged Ballard and his organization had engaged in “blundering missions—carried out in part by real estate agents and high-level donors—that seemed aimed mainly at generating exciting video footage.” (Ballard has not yet responded to Vanity Fair ’s requests for comment. Though a representative from Angel Studios initially proposed an interview with Ballard, they later said they were unable to reach him to arrange a meeting.)

These reports were widely read and shared but were reviled as often as they were praised. That’s because of a second development: the QAnon set of conspiracy theories, which originated in 2017 and gradually gained notice by the mainstream in the ensuing years. The movement’s “core falsehood,” as The New York Times put it , asserts that “a group of Satan-worshiping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media.”

Around late 2020, QAnon started to use claims about child trafficking as an outreach strategy. As The New York Times reported at the time, adherents began “flooding social media with posts about human trafficking, joining parenting Facebook groups and glomming on to hashtag campaigns like #SaveTheChildren,” then moving “the conversation to baseless theories about who they believe is doing the trafficking: a cabal of nefarious elites that includes Tom Hanks , Oprah Winfrey and Pope Francis. ”

Monteverde obviously couldn’t have predicted any of this when pre-production began on Sound of Freedom, and he met with actor Jim Caviezel. Monteverde was taken by the actor’s conviction about the subject of child trafficking and cast him as Ballard. Still best known then for his portrayal of Jesus in Mel Gibson ’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ , Caviezel, who for many years had been vocal about his strict Catholic faith , was just coming off Person of Interest, a five-season CBS sci-fi crime drama.

“QAnon was really just ramping up as the movie was being shot,” says Mike Rothschild, author of a QAnon history book The Storm Is Upon Us . “Caviezel has had his Q-pilled awakening in the last few years, I think partially because of him shooting this movie.”

Due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, Caviezel was not available for comment. But news coverage of statements he’s made in recent years suggest that he shares the unsubstantiated QAnon belief that the wealthy and famous harvest the blood of kidnapped children in pursuit of a chemical called adrenochrome. According to the Daily Beast, Caviezel attended a conservative conference in 2021 in which he discussed his experience filming Sound of Freedom and claimed Ballard told him about child traffickers’ role in harvesting the chemical.

No claims like this appear in Sound of Freedom itself. Neither do any other conspiracies, or overt politics more broadly. Folks like Merlan, Marchman, and Rothschild call the movie serviceable, even enjoyable at times. But the combination of QAnon’s sudden interest in child trafficking and Caviezel’s remarks cast a cloud over the property long before it found a new distributor.

Tim Ballard.

With a self-stated mission to “amplify light” and a business model based on crowdfunded projects, Angel Studios might seem an unlikely fit for a movie about something as dark and hopeless as the sexual exploitation of children. But according to CEO Neal Harmon, it’s a natural fit. “ Sound of Freedom is first and foremost a thrilling hero’s tale that keeps you on the edge of your seat,” he tells VF . “When you leave, you leave with hope.”

Harmon isn’t just a film distributor. With his brothers—who are also Angel executives—he ran an advertising and marketing agency called Harmon Brothers , which has promoted brands like toilet odor spray Poo-Pourri and the defecation-assistance stool Squatty Potty. He’s also the cofounder of VidAngel, a company that engaged in a years-long legal battle with Disney and Warner Brothers over the practice of removing so-called “objectionable content” from those studios’ TV shows and movies, then streaming the altered properties to VidAngel’s customers. (A settlement was reached in which VidAngel agreed to pay the studios $9.9 million.)

According to Harmon, there’s little difference between selling a physical product like the Squatty Potty and “selling seats for a movie.” That seat-selling strategy is arguably one of Sound of Freedom ’s most controversial elements. After Angel bought the film’s distribution rights, the company added a call to action to its credits. It encourages patrons to help “raise awareness” of child trafficking—but instead of donating to anti-trafficking groups or even directly to Ballard’s efforts, patrons are asked to “pay it forward” by purchasing additional tickets for the film. “We don’t have big studio money to market this movie, but we have you,” an out-of-character Caviezel says before a QR code appears onscreen.

Harmon declined to share how much money Sound of Freedom has made from actual butts in seats, and how much has come from the pay-it-forward revenue (which is tracked by a separate sales platform), but as of today, Sound of Freedom had made over $100 million—far in excess of all expectations. And rather than dropping with time, Sound of Freedom ’s profits continue to grow week over week, Harmon and Monteverde independently confirmed.

It’s a level of success that frustrates trafficking survivor Jose Alfaro . Alfaro hasn’t seen the film, but he’s familiar with Ballard and OUR. He tells me that narratives like Sound of Freedom ’s, which present trafficking as a result of kidnapping that sends victims across borders, “aren’t really representative of how more commonly this crime actually happens.” Merlan agrees, saying the movie contributes to the false perception “that the problem of trafficking is best addressed by kicking down doors and carrying children out.”

Perhaps surprisingly, even OUR concedes this point. The group writes on its own website that “while this type of human trafficking exists, it isn’t the majority,” and that “most trafficking happens through a manipulative grooming process,” not through the kidnapping scenarios portrayed in the film.

Though OUR touts Sound of Freedom on its website, the Ballard-founded organization isn’t mentioned at all in the movie. Instead, the film presents Ballard as practically a one-man army. In fact, Ballard left OUR “prior to launch of the film,” the group told Vice—though he was still with OUR as of this May when Davis County attorney Troy Rawlings closed a years-long investigation into the organization. On social media, Rawlings had warned people against donating to organizations claiming credit for child protection cases solved by Utah’s Davis County task force. (When reached by phone, Rawlings declined to comment on the record about his office’s investigation. OUR has not responded to multiple emails requesting comment.)

Merlan, Marchant, and Albright suggest that as promotion for the film kicked into gear, OUR may have opted to distance itself from a founder that’s been focusing his efforts on the media’s fringes. Three weeks ago, right-leaning outlet The Daily Signal posted a video in which Ballard sits shoulder-to-shoulder with Caviezel; the interview is titled, “Transgender Movement and Biden Border Policy Aid and Abet Child Sex Slavery, Tim Ballard Warns.” In the video, Ballard rails against “the woke left agenda” and says that “pedophiles have been pushing this agenda for decades.” A day after that video was posted, Ballard appeared on the podcast of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk to discuss the widely debunked conspiracy theory of organ harvesting within child trafficking.

Even when Ballard isn’t central, the film’s promotion adheres to very specific party lines. This week, former president Donald Trump is hosting a screening of the film at his Bedminster, NJ golf club, with Caviezel, Ballard, and actor/producer Eduardo Verástegui in attendance.

Monteverde won’t be there, though. He told Angel that he “did not want to participate in any event or thing that could be political,” and that he wouldn’t do interviews about the film “through any outlet that was associated with just one type of audience.” When asked about the interviews Ballard and Caviezel have given to right-wing outlets, he says, “When I see something like that, it’s very painful.”

Bad reviews are part of the business, and Monteverde knows that. “I don't mind if people don't like the film; I’m completely okay with that,” he says. “I don’t like some films, either!” But Sound of Freedom has been stirring up a lot of charged rhetoric, largely thanks to other folks associated with the movie. In a Fox News appearance last week, Ballard claimed outlets that have reviewed the film or its apparent politics unfavorably are also trying to “normalize sexual activity with children,” and declared that “pedophiles are salivating” at reviews that are anything less than positive.

Harmon makes a similar suggestion to me, albeit far more gently. He floats the idea that some criticism of the film might be coming from people who benefit from child exploitation, and “are not wanting public opinion to put a magnifying glass on this industry.”

Neither Harmon nor Ballard have done much to debunk one of the most pervasive claims made about the film—specifically, that Disney tried to “block” its release, ostensibly for nefarious purposes. According to a Newsweek fact check , Disney says the studio wasn’t even aware Sound of Freedom existed when it purchased its previous distributor, and after Angel mounted a crowdfunding campaign, it was able to release the film in theaters.

Ballard has specifically called out Rolling Stone, accusing it of “running interference for human traffickers and pedophiles.” Miles Klee wrote a scathing review of the film in the outlet.

Klee found Sound of Freedom “overly long, badly plotted, generally boring,” he tells me. More importantly, he saw it as “potentially a recruitment tool for the far right”—and wrote as much. His piece was published the Friday after the movie opened. By the following Monday, he said he was being targeted by far-right media outlets and harassed on social media by users who told him that through his work, he’d outed himself as a pedophile.

Alfaro says that he’s also been attacked by fans of the film. So have other trafficking survivors who’ve been critical of the film for its positive depiction of Ballard, or for the way it portrays the sex trafficking industry. “These people say that they care about trafficking,” says Alfaro. “But at the end of the day, you’re sitting there calling trafficking survivors pedophiles and traffickers because they don’t agree with this film.”

All of this is bewildering to Monteverde, who never could have imagined that his movie would be so financially successful—or mired in controversy. “I never intended to make a movie to glorify Tim Ballard. It was a movie to call attention to the problem, the subject matter, the darkness,” he says. “I always thought this was a movie that was going to bring people together.” Instead, it seems, Sound of Freedom illustrates divides that just can’t be crossed.

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Contributor

Sound Of Freedom Review

01 Sep 2023

Sound Of Freedom

Sound Of Freedom , the first independent movie since the pandemic to make more than $100 million at the US box office, did not reach that milestone without controversy. Based (somewhat loosely) on real-life efforts by former Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard to rescue children from sex traffickers in South America, the film has been embraced by QAnon conspiracy theorists and Donald Trump has hosted a screening at one of his golf courses. For some of its supporters (and detractors), Sound Of Freedom isn’t just a movie — it’s yet another front in the culture war.

Strip away that noise, however, and what you’re left with is a suspenseful, if conventional, thriller about a man willing to do anything to reunite a family. Jim Caviezel plays Ballard with steely intensity, and director Alejandro Monteverde’s gaze often lingers on his big blue eyes, which convey both sorrow at the “messed-up world” he finds himself confronting and a single-minded determination to complete his mission, whatever the cost.

Its impact is undercut by a nakedly manipulative mid-credits scene.

We first meet Ballard in California, where he tricks a child pornographer into giving up a trafficker on the US-Mexico border and frees a young boy named Miguel (Lucás Ávila). When Ballard learns that Miguel’s sister Rocío (Cristal Aparicio) is still missing, he travels to Cartagena to track her down. After teaming up with a cigar-chomping former cartel accountant named Vampiro (Bill Camp, turning in the film’s most enjoyable performance), he plans an audacious sting operation on a Colombian island and eventually goes undercover as a doctor to track Rocío deep into a rebel-held region of the jungle.

Arguably the film’s most dramatic moment is its epilogue, which includes grainy black-and-white footage of Ballard’s actual island sting, but its impact is undercut by a nakedly manipulative mid-credits scene in which Caviezel addresses the camera and claims the best way to end child slavery is to buy as many tickets for Sound Of Freedom as possible. Clearly this unusual marketing tactic has been successful, but it detracts from this taut drama and its serious message.

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Metacritic reviews

Sound of freedom.

• 85 Film Threat Alan Ng Film Threat Alan Ng It’s tough to watch, and you will fight the urge to walk out but stick with it.
• 70 Variety Owen Gleiberman Variety Owen Gleiberman This is a genre thriller. That said, it’s an urgent and honest one, and Caviezel gives his most committed performance since “The Passion of the Christ.”
• 60 The Irish Times Tara Brady The Irish Times Tara Brady The storytelling is routine. It warrants neither its hard-core disciples nor its worst enemies. Ignore the dishonest huffing and puffing.
• 60 Empire Empire Jim Caviezel is a one-man scourge of child predators in this well-meaning thriller that doesn’t entirely deserve to be written off as culture-war propaganda.
• 50 RogerEbert.com Nick Allen RogerEbert.com Nick Allen Take away the noise surrounding it, and Sound of Freedom has distinct cinematic ambitions: a non-graphic horror film with what could be called an art-house sensibility for muted rage and precise, striking shadows derived from an already bleak world. If “Sound of Freedom” were less concerned with being something "important," it could be more than a mood, it could be a movie.
• 38 Movie Nation Roger Moore Movie Nation Roger Moore A compelling hot-button subject and engrossing “true story” runs up against a ponderous script, pedestrian direction and the limited range of star Jim Caviezel in Sound of Freedom, a lumbering thriller about international child sex trafficking that flatlines when it’s meant to be moving, uplifting and inspiring.
• 30 The New York Times Glenn Kenny The New York Times Glenn Kenny It’s hard to tell if this movie avoids any conventionally exciting set pieces out of scrupulousness or just lack of inspiration. Oddly, the picture’s muted tone ultimately undercuts its solemn sense of mission.
• 20 Rolling Stone Rolling Stone Apart from its relentless messaging, the movie is hobbled by a near-total absence of procedural logic.
• 20 The Guardian Peter Bradshaw The Guardian Peter Bradshaw This is just a dull and badly acted movie.
• 20 The Telegraph Ed Power The Telegraph Ed Power It’s bizarre, unsettling and yet – in the filmmaking equivalent of turning wine to water – bracingly dull to boot.
• See all 11 reviews on Metacritic.com
• See all external reviews for Sound of Freedom

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Sound of freedom.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 109 Reviews
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Common Sense Media Review

Heavy-handed child trafficking drama depicts sexual abuse.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Sound of Freedom is a partially crowdfunded action drama with faith-based elements and heavy themes related to child trafficking and sexual abuse. It details what led former government agent Tim Ballard (Jim Caviezel) to create the controversial real-life organization Operation…

Why Age 16+?

The plot is about child sex trafficking, with accompanying dialogue, visuals, de

Language includes "ass," "a--hole," and "s--t," plus threats.

Smoking and drinking throughout. One character drinks constantly, including shot

A married couple embodies a loving, supportive relationship.

Car brands are seen/referenced to indicate wealth.

Any Positive Content?

Hero Tim Ballard is a father whose difficult job is to put pedophiles behind bar

Repeated message is: "God's children are not for sale." You should do whatever y

Main character Tim Ballard is a White American male who demonstrates both positi

Violence & Scariness

The plot is about child sex trafficking, with accompanying dialogue, visuals, descriptions, and real-life footage. Small children are made to look physically appealing to potential buyers. Terrified children sit or lie on beds alone before men enter the room, unbuckling and removing their belts or closing the curtains, the clear suggestion being that the kids are about to be raped. Children are yelled at by abductors. Rapists use comforting, friendly tones to manipulate children. A child is punched and knocked out. Gun put to temple of a main character. Fight involves punches and a fatal stabbing. Abducted children are hysterical after being separated from their parents and are transported in shipping containers. Closed-circuit cameras capture several real-life kidnappings. Automatic weapons are fired.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Smoking and drinking throughout. One character drinks constantly, including shots, but never seems drunk. Negative characters bond by drinking and smoking around a campfire. The inside of a drug cartel's compound shows plants being tended to and transformed into drug product, although no one is seen doing drugs.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Positive role models.

Hero Tim Ballard is a father whose difficult job is to put pedophiles behind bars. Acting with compassion for the young victims and empathy for their parents, he demonstrates immense bravery, self-control, and integrity. Others join him on his quest to break up a child sex trafficking ring, demonstrating teamwork and perseverance. A former criminal shows it's never too late to turn your life around and puts his bad reputation to good use.

Positive Messages

Repeated message is: "God's children are not for sale." You should do whatever you can to help stop evil acts against the helpless. In real life, the organization at the story's center has been accused of politicizing child trafficking and linked with conspiracy theories. The film was partially crowdfunded and plays like a piece of propaganda; there's a plea for donations (complete with QR code) in the end credits.

Diverse Representations

Main character Tim Ballard is a White American male who demonstrates both positive characteristics and hypermasculinity. A Honduran family and their determination to find each other motivates Ballard and his team to take daring action. A Colombian investigator is depicted positively, with his SWAT team supporting the U.S. government. South Americans are portrayed as kidnappers, drug lords, enforcers, and pedophiles, though these representations are consistent with real events. It's also made clear that White American men are the primary drivers of child trafficking.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that Sound of Freedom is a partially crowdfunded action drama with faith-based elements and heavy themes related to child trafficking and sexual abuse. It details what led former government agent Tim Ballard ( Jim Caviezel ) to create the controversial real-life organization Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.), whose mission is finding and freeing trafficked children. Expect scenes that are very hard to watch. Small children are shown being abducted from loving parents, locked up, manipulated, and sexually exploited. Visuals include very young trafficked children sitting or lying on a bed as a man unbuckles his pants, combined with verbal references to children being raped. Drug cartel enforcers carry big guns and shoot automatic weapons. Ballard makes a point of not carrying a gun himself and demonstrates integrity, compassion, empathy, perseverance, and immense self-control as he risks his life to rescue the children. A physical fight involves punches and a deadly stabbing. Characters drink and smoke throughout and occasionally swear ("a--hole," "s--t"). There's a plea in the closing credits to donate to O.U.R. Before donating, we recommend that parents do their own research using credible sources on Ballard and his organization, which has been linked to various conspiracy theorists. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (109)
• Kids say (27)

Based on 109 parent reviews

Inspiring Story about fighting Human Trafficking, Tim Ballard is a Hero.

What's the story.

In SOUND OF FREEDOM, Tim Ballard ( Jim Caviezel ) is a Homeland Security agent who's good at his grueling job: catching child predators and putting them in prison. During an arrest, he recovers a young boy who's being trafficked and returns him to his grateful father, Checho (Ariel Sierra). Checho then asks Ballard to find his daughter, Rocio (Cristal Aparicio), who was abducted at the same time. Realizing that individual countries don't have the jurisdiction or resources to pursue the children who are being used and moved across the globe, Ballard makes it his mission to find the missing girl at any cost.

Is It Any Good?

What's vital isn't always cinematic, and learning about the horrors of humanity -- even in the most heroic and epic takedowns -- may be better read than watched, especially when it comes to teens. The events (and the hero) of Sound of Freedom might be better digested if they were fiction, partly due to the story's heavy themes, but also because some of the set pieces are somewhat unbelievable -- like when Ballard singlehandedly takes down a highly protected drug lord. And while the movie's cinematography and acting are solid, the way the trafficked children are depicted is designed to exploit viewers' emotions, and the end credits explain why: To continue the Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.) mission, the organization needs people to spread the word ... and open their wallets.

In real life, Ballard has received criticism for self-mythologizing and raising millions of dollars from those who are eager to write a check in the hopes of rescuing children. Bringing attention to the realities of child trafficking is, of course, extremely important -- as is the need to prevent it. But this movie plays like a piece of propaganda aimed at guilt-tripping audiences into donating money to a foundation that, among other things, has been accused of having connections with conspiracy theorists. There's valuable information to be gained from Sound of Freedom about how traffickers operate (although some experts question the tone and accuracy of the depiction ), and the sting in Cartagena is a stand-up-and-cheer victory for good over evil. Just recognize that the film has an agenda beyond simply "saving kids."

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Sound of Freedom 's violence . Did the images seem designed to entertain or to warn? What's the impact of media violence on kids?

How accurate do you think the film is to real-life people and events? The studio that made the film says creative liberties were taken with some of the people and events depicted in the movie -- why might filmmakers decide to change facts?

Tim Ballard and his O.U.R. organization have received criticism for politicizing their work and supporting conspiracy theorists, and some trafficking experts object to the sensationalized way this extremely serious problem is portrayed in the film . Why is it important to do your own independent research using credible sources before deciding whether to support a cause?

How does the movie depict drinking and smoking ? Was it glorified, or were there consequences? Why does that matter?

How does Ballard demonstrate courage , integrity , self-control , compassion , empathy, perseverance , and teamwork ? Why are these important life skills?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 4, 2023
• On DVD or streaming : November 14, 2023
• Cast : Jim Caviezel , Bill Camp , Mira Sorvino
• Director : Alejandro Monteverde
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Angel Studios
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 135 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : thematic content involving sex trafficking, violence, language, sexual references, some drug references and smoking throughout
• Last updated : August 14, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

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Home » Movie News » Sound of Freedom Review

Sound of Freedom Review

We review the hugely successful, but controversial Sound of Freedom, starring Jim Caviezel and Bill Camp.

Last Updated on August 4, 2023

PLOT: A former Department of Homeland Security agent ( Jim Caviezel ) risks his life to save a brother and sister who sex traffickers have abducted, eventually launching a large scale operation to save hundreds of kids. Eventually it spawns Operation Underground Railroad, an organization committed to ending the child sex trafficking trade.

REVIEW:   Sound of Freedom is definitely one of the most notable movies of the summer season. Having originally been produced by 20th Century Fox before Disney acquired the company, the movie sat on the shelf for five years. Boasting a modest budget and coming from a pretty tiny studio, the grassroots campaign used to market the film has resulted in some pretty staggering box office results , with it having already grossed $40 million. It will likely be the highest-grossing independent film of the year. However, it’s also been a lightning rod for controversy, with many slamming it as a “Quanon film.”

Here at JoBlo, we do our best to be apolitical, and our interest in reviewing Sound of Freedom comes from the fact that it’s struck a chord with audiences, and we like to cover all sorts of popular entertainment. Viewed through that lens as pure entertainment, Sound of Freedom is a decently-made thriller about an important topic. Child sex trafficking is a scourge, and Sound of Freedom is not the only movie to ever tackle the subject. Last year, a Liam Neeson actioner called Memory tackled the same topic, and even though many are saying this is “faith-based,” Sound of Freedom is actually the more nuanced, sophisticated movie. 

While I have no idea whether or not the people behind this movie ascribe to Quanon theories (star Jim Caviezel seems to), this is not, as far as I can tell, particularly concerned with that topic (let’s not forget that when it was made five years ago, Quanon was still a very fringe). I wouldn’t even call it particularly religious either, other than the fact that the hero, Tim Ballard, a real guy, is shown to believe in God. But other than him using it to spout the movie’s big one-liner, “God’s Children Are Not For Sale,” it has very little bearing on the film. It’s a slickly made thriller about an important topic and the fact that it exaggerates Ballard’s actions is wholly owned up to by the man himself. He even fact-checked the movie himself on his website , dismissing some of the more Hollywood fabrications, including the fact that he ever killed anyone or acted as a vigilante. Sound of Freedom isn’t the only movie to ever exaggerate reality for cinematic effect.

Is Sound of Freedom a great movie? No, but it’s a perfectly decent one. Considering the reported $15 million budget, director Alejandro Monteverde made a great-looking film, with them having shot the movie on location in Cartagena. While Caviezel hasn’t been in a mainstream film in a long time, he gives a committed, intense performance as Ballard. While people may view him as a strange guy, there are moments here that make one remember how good he was in stuff like The Count of Monte Cristo , Person of Interest , and – of course – The Passion of the Christ . While he does break out the saintly Jesus look a few too many times, overall, his performance is quite good. 

However, the movie is all but stolen by the great Bill Camp, a former Cali Cartel boss named Vampiro, who buys children, but then sets them free. He and Ballard form an allegiance, and Camp’s character remains rugged and realistic, more so than you would see were this a traditional “faith-based film.” The movie really benefits from his presence and his powerful acting elevates the proceedings significantly. It’s also one of the hardest PG-13 movies you’ve ever seen, with it fully evoking the horror of the child sex trade without going overboard and being exploitative. It walks a fine line, but does it well.

Even still, The Sound of Freedom isn’t perfect, with the final act that follows Ballard basically becoming a vigilante, complete with church bell gongs on the soundtrack when he beats a bad guy to death, ringing hollow. On his website, Ballard admits this is pure Hollywood fabrication, but up to then, the movie worked more often than it didn’t.

Unfortunately, the movie ends with a bizarre sequence, billed as a “special message,” where Caviezel tells the audience that the film is the 21st-century version of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. He then urges them to spread the word by scanning a QR code to donate tickets. It’s a novel approach, but it could have been done more sophisticatedly, and it ends the film on a sour note. Imagine a movie where the actor breaks character at the end and tells you that, hey, you’ve just seen one of the most important movies ever made. It’s off-putting, but even still, Sound of Freedom is a better movie than its detractors might have you think. By the same token, though, it’s also not the masterpiece others may say it is. Ultimately, it’s a good, solid thriller about an important topic—nothing more but certainly nothing less. 

Sound of Freedom

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About the Author

Chris Bumbray began his career with JoBlo as the resident film critic (and James Bond expert) way back in 2007, and he has stuck around ever since, being named editor-in-chief in 2021. A voting member of the CCA and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, you can also catch Chris discussing pop culture regularly on CTV News Channel.

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Sound of Freedom

By Alan Ng | July 4, 2023

NOW IN THEATERS! I’ll say this about director Alejandro Monteverde’s  Sound of Freedom : its message far outweighs any criticism or praise I have for the film. It’s an important true story about child sex trafficking, and its presentation gets real. Written by Monteverde and Rod Barr, this dramatic thriller follows former Homeland Security Agent Tim Ballard (Jim Caviezel). In the States, Tim runs one pedophile sting after another, with a staggering arrest rate. The problem is all he’s doing is capturing the pedos while more and more children are exploited every day, on the internet and in person.

Meanwhile, a former beauty queen Katy-Gisselle (Yessica Borroto Perryman), wanders the streets of Honduras posing as a modeling talent scout, luring children and unsuspecting parents into a day of modeling training. Here the movie follows the story of young Rocio and her brother, Miguel, who are taken away with about six other children and packed in shipping containers to Cartagena. Hoping to actually rescue a child, Tim poses as a pedo and manages to have Miguel delivered to him at the Tijuana border. After learning Miguel’s heartbreaking story, Tim promises Miguel and his father to track down and rescue Rocio.

“… trick the worst traffickers into bringing dozens of children in a massive sting operation .”

Given a short leash by his Homeland Security boss, Frost (Kurt Fuller), Tim hooks up with a former drug lord, Vampiro (Bill Camp), who has been secretly buying children in order to give them their freedom. Frost and Vampiro scheme to create their own Epstein Island in Cartagena, trick the worst traffickers into bringing dozens of children in a massive sting operation. Just as the plan is about the come together, Frost pulls the plug.

Personally, I want you to see  Sound of Freedom . Child and adult sex trafficking is a real crisis around the world. Thousands of children are exploited and abused daily; like drugs, the United States is the largest market for children. Unlike drugs, children can earn their traffickers hundreds of dollars five times a day, every day. The filmmakers take you right into the heart of the problem while only giving you a small sampling of how pervasive the problem is.

Sound of Freedom (2023)

Directed: Alejandro Monteverde

Written: Rod Barr, Alejandro Monteverde

Starring: Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino, Bill Camp, Kurt Fuller, etc.

Movie score: 8.5/10

"…heartfelt, informative, and inspiring. Go see this movie."

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[…] JUNETEENTH PREVIEW! From Angel Studios came last year’s hit, Sound of Freedom, which destroyed Indiana Jones at the box office. This year, we have the next story in the […]

[…] off the surprise blockbuster hit Sound of Freedom, Angel Studios is releasing its first original feature in theaters on December 1st. The Shift was […]

Great article, on point. We need to make a global movement campaign to combat child trafficking

Startling, eye-opening movie that everyone should see.

[…] independent action film, which has made a surprising amount of money since its release on July 4? A moving true story about a real American hero? A dangerous gateway into misinformation and conspiracy? A gamble […]

[…] independent action film, which has made a shocking amount of cash since its launch on July 4? A moving true story about an actual American hero? A dangerous gateway into misinformation and conspiracy? Of venture […]

[…] Sound of Freedom Featured, Reviews Film Threat […]

This move is a must see! The people that discount the power of this movie are living in a bubble, or are actively participating in this crime against Gods children…. The slavery of today, has more people than all of the slaves combined from past years. I pray that God will convict every soul to watch this movie and pay it forward.🙏🏻🙏🏻

They say it is True, but my gut tells me they crossed over the “credibility line” at least 3-4 tims

Hope this help with credibility – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WB93KEgVcI

Holy hell reviewer. Maybe look up the “true story” behind this movie before you praise these knuckleheads as heroes. Lol

GREAT MOVIE

At last, a professional film critic who writes about this movie. I completely agree with your review. Could have used better pacing and flesh out some supporting characters (like Mira Sorvino, for example). It is indeed a powerful story, and an honest retelling. Just to think that it only scratches the surface. The theater I went to was packed. You are not alone if you cried or felt gobsmacked throughout. Go see it!

Thank you for reviewing this movie without the belittling of the fact it’s “faith-based” and criticism it comes from narrow-minded Christian conservatives. It just happens this subject matter, compared to many other disturbing issues humanity faces almost always gets pushback. It’s heartbreaking fortune 500 companies will do anything for my hard earned dollar, except help make me and my family feel safe.

Great review

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• Entertainment
• How <i>Sound of Freedom</i> Became the Surprise Box Office Hit of the Summer

How Sound of Freedom Became the Surprise Box Office Hit of the Summer

A mid the hype over the cinematic double whammy of "Barbenheimer" , another movie has crept up in the box office rankings this summer: Sound of Freedom .

Directed and co-written by Alejandro Monteverde, Sound of Freedom is a low-budget action thriller about a U.S. federal agent who goes rogue on a mission to rescue children in Latin America from sex trafficking. Since its release on July 4, it's raked in over $180 million at the domestic box office , outperforming big-budget features like Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny , and making it the highest-grossing indie film since 2019’s Parasite .

Billed as a story about the real-life Tim Ballard, a former special agent for the Department of Homeland Security and founder of the anti-trafficking group Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.), Sound of Freedom has become mired in controversy over criticisms that it features misleading depictions of child exploitation and plays into right-wing conspiracy theories associated with the QAnon movement . These associations have been perpetuated by both Ballard and his on-screen counterpart, Jim Caviezel, who has been a prominent supporter of QAnon for years.

The film's distributor, Angel Studios, has denied that Sound of Freedom is political or connected to QAnon. “Anybody who watches this film knows that this film is not about conspiracy theories," Angel CEO Neal Harmon said in an interview . "It’s not about politics.”

While Sound of Freedom doesn't take a direct political stance or invoke QAnon, the fervent support for the film from the right has resulted it in being labeled "MAGA-friendly" and embraced by both mainstream conservatives and far-right conspiracy theorists. Former President Donald Trump recently hosted a screening of the film at his golf club in New Jersey, while Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Tim Scott have publicly praised it.

Here's how Sound of Freedom became the controversial hit of the summer.

Sound of Freedom 's origin story

In August, Monteverde—best known for writing and directing the 2006 drama Bella , which won the top prize at the Toronto International Film Festival—began addressing the controversies around Sound of Freedom , calling the association with QAnon "ridiculous" in an interview with Variety .

“The origin [of the film] has been avoided, purposely or accidentally, in the media,” he said. “The origin will answer a lot of these misconceptions on the film.”

According to the filmmaker, he began the project that became Sound of Freedom in 2015, two years before QAnon emerged. After watching a network news segment on child sex trafficking, Monteverde said he was inspired to start writing a screenplay on the subject. The resulting script, originally titled Mogul , was "purely fictionalized," he said.

However, after the film’s producer, Eduardo Verástegui, met Ballard, the project came to center on the time that Ballard spent deployed as an undercover operative for the U.S. Child Sex Tourism Jump Team while assigned to Homeland Security's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force for over a decade prior to 2013.

"All I wanted was to present a question about the problem: human trafficking, child trafficking, child sexual exploitation," Monteverde said. "How bad the problem is. We shot in 2018. In 2019, it was a completely finished film."

Verástegui—who plays a role in Sound of Freedom in addition to producing—was also responsible for rallying the investors who supplied $14.5 million in funding for the film. At Sound of Freedom 's premiere, he told the Washington Examiner that after he heard Ballard's story, he was compelled to turn it into a film. “I am a filmmaker," he said. "I ask myself, 'What can I do?' A movie. I have a weapon of mass instruction, and inspiration.”

Verástegui later told the New York Post that while he doesn't understand the criticism surrounding the movie, he sees it as a blessing in disguise. “They are doing us a favor, the more they attack the movie, people show up," he said. " Sound of Freedom is saving lives."

The film was initially picked up for distribution by Fox Latin America, but ended up in production limbo for nearly five years after Fox was acquired by Disney in 2019. Disney allegedly declined to release the film , but ultimately allowed the filmmakers to buy back the rights.

After the movie was further delayed by the pandemic and passed on for distribution by other major studios and streamers, the Sound of Freedom team agreed to a deal with Angel Studios in March 2023.

What is Angel Studios and how did it get involved?

Founded in 2021 by Mormon brothers Neal and Jeff Harmon, Angel Studios is a Utah-based media company that specializes in crowdfunding original films and TV series that "amplify light." In recent years, the studio has found success with The Chosen , a multi-season series about the life of Jesus touted by Angel as the "biggest crowdfunded project in TV history," and faith-based films like His Only Son and Testament .

To distribute and market Sound of Freedom , Angel raised $5 million from nearly 7,000 crowd investors in exchange for shares of the film's revenue. On August 16, the studio announced in a press release that it repaid its backers their original investment plus a 20% profit.

Monteverde told Variety that the Harmons took a unique approach to promoting Sound of Freedom .

"They just had a completely different way of marketing a film that I’ve never seen," he said. "I became a pain. And they told me, 'Alejandro, let us do our work. You have to trust us.' And we made a deal."

To drum up ticket sales, Angel added a clip at the end of the film's trailer where Caviezel directly addresses the audience and encourages viewers to preorder their tickets to "send the message that God's children are no longer for sale." Caviezel also comes on screen at the end of the movie itself to urge audiences to participate in Angel's "Pay It Forward" program by buying an extra ticket for someone "who might not otherwise see [the film]."

This has led to questions about how many of those extra tickets are actually being used and whether they're over-inflating the movie's sales figures. Jared Geesey, Angel's senior vice president of global distribution, told the Hollywood Reporter that the "vast majority" of tickets are being bought directly by moviegoers and that only redeemed donated tickets are counted when Angel reports its box office grosses. Monteverde estimated that the Pay It Forward program accounts for less than 10% of Sound of Freedom 's overall box-office earnings.

“We do not break out Pay It Forward tickets versus regular tickets because they’re the same thing," Geesey said. "A ticket is a ticket, whether you paid for it or someone else paid for it.”

According to the studio's website, money from unredeemed tickets may be used to pay for streaming Sound of Freedom in the Angel Studios app or "to help the filmmaker create additional content."

Angel did not respond to TIME's request for comment.

Controversy takes over

Much of the controversy surrounding Sound of Freedom stems from Caviezel and Ballard, who have openly supported QAnon.

Caviezel, best known for playing Jesus in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ , has given speeches and interviews in which he promotes the baseless conspiracy theory that a shadowy international cabal of top Democratic politicians and famous liberal elites are kidnapping children, forcing them into sex trafficking, and harvesting the chemical adrenochrome from their blood to consume as an elixir of youth. The conspiracy theory, which has anti-Semitic roots, has been debunked numerous times by media outlets and scientific communities .

Meanwhile, Ballard is caught up in his own web of controversy. In addition to voicing support for false QAnon-associated claims, Ballard's work as an anti-trafficking activist has also come under scrutiny.

Days after Sound of Freedom was released, Vice published a lengthy investigation into how Ballard has a history of self-mythologizing and embellishing his exploits while O.U.R. has "spent years making big, often unprovable claims about its paramilitary missions and role in rescuing trafficked kids."

"A number of O.U.R.’s claims about its work are dramatically overstated or without clear documentary evidence," the piece read. "People who have volunteered for O.U.R. have raised concerns that it could actually have been creating demand for trafficking victims, by going to foreign countries on undercover 'missions' that, at times, have seemed to consist of walking around bars and sex clubs asking for underage girls."

Later that month, Vice reported that Ballard had quietly parted ways with O.U.R. ahead of Sound of Freedom 's debut. The circumstances surrounding Ballard's departure were unclear.

"Tim Ballard has stepped away from Operation Underground Railroad prior to the launch of the film, Sound of Freedom ," O.U.R. said in a statement provided to TIME. "The operations, tactics, and methodologies depicted in Sound of Freedom occurred in the early days of our organization, nearly nine years ago, and since then have evolved dramatically. The film represents just a small fraction of the operations, training, and aftercare support that we provide in the U.S. and around the world today."

Sound of Freedom itself has also been criticized by anti-trafficking experts for providing a "false perception" of child trafficking and promoting "rescue" tactics that may actually put real victims in danger.

What's next for Sound of Freedom

Following its success in the U.S., Sound of Freedom is set to roll out overseas in 21 different markets, including the U.K., Australia, Spain, South Africa and a number of countries in Latin America.

According to Geesey, Angel Studios believes the film will ultimately cross the $200 million mark in North America as it begins what is expected to be a robust international launch. Sound of Freedom is currently the 10th highest-grossing of the year in the U.S., outranking blockbusters like Dial of Destiny , Dead Reckoning Part One , Transformers: Rise of the Beasts , Creed III , and Fast X .

“Since Sound of Freedom launched in the U.S., demand has been building around the world in dozens of regions and languages,” he told the Hollywood Reporter . “Child trafficking is a global issue, and we hope to build on the incredible momentum here in the states and share the film’s powerful message worldwide.”

Angel has also reportedly been shopping the first exclusive streaming rights for Sound of Freedom at both subscription services and ad-supported streamers.

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Sound of Freedom: An unlikely - and controversial - summer movie hit

Summer at the movies is a time for big-budget blockbusters, but this year an independent drama with religious undertones is both competing with the likes of Indiana Jones and causing a political stir.

Sound of Freedom tells the story of a government agent who busts a child sexual abuse ring operating in Colombia.

The main character is based on Timothy Ballard, a former Department of Homeland Security agent who founded an anti-human trafficking organisation, Operation Underground Railroad (OUR).

He goes undercover, and some of the gritty action scenes in the Colombian jungle wouldn't look out of place in a more conventional Hollywood flick.

The review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie a critic score of 77%.

But this is not a typical summer blockbuster. A string of conspiratorial comments by the leading actor Jim Caviezel and the movie's themes have turned the film into another culture war flashpoint.

Mixed reviews

Rolling Stone called Sound of Freedom a "QAnon-tinged thriller" - a reference to the sprawling conspiracy theory that says that Donald Trump is fighting an elite cabal of satanic paedophiles.

That sort of biting coverage - the headline called it "a superhero movie for dads with brainworms" - was broadly reflective of reviews in left-leaning outlets, while right-wing publications took an altogether different line.

"It's not 'paranoid' or 'QAnon adjacent' to bring much-needed attention to horrors that are all too real," wrote the conservative National Review.

The idea that elite cabals of child sex traffickers lurk everywhere is a core QAnon idea. But the company behind the film denies it's fuelling conspiratorial thinking.

"Anyone who has seen this movie knows it has nothing to do with conspiracy theories," said Angel Studios president Jordan Harmon. "It's about a man who did something brave."

Star calls QAnon 'a good thing'

But those QAnon references are not entirely spurious. The film's star Caviezel has talked repeatedly about some of its more bizarre themes.

Caviezel attended a QAnon-themed conference in 2021 and has appeared a number of times on Steve Bannon's podcast, recently calling QAnon "a good thing".

Using the language of the movement, he warned that "a big storm is coming" and also referred to the "mystical qualities" of adrenochrome, a chemical that QAnon fans falsely believe is being harvested from the brains of child victims.

"On the one hand, Angel Studios is seeking to present this film as a mainstream movie, as an important story," said John Knefel, a senior writer at the left-wing media watchdog group Media Matters for America. "The other key prong of this marketing blitz is Jim Caviezel absolutely embracing QAnon messaging and theories."

"I do think that this could very well serve as a template for mainstreaming far-right ideas under the guise of an easy popcorn blockbuster," he said.

Operation Underground Railroad and Timothy Ballard have come under criticism for different issues in the past. Investigations by Vice News and others have accused the group of exaggerating their success in breaking up child sexual abuse rings.

And the energy around conspiracy theories has the potential to distract from legitimate efforts to tackle a very real problem.

"Anti-trafficking groups have already said that QAnon hinders their efforts, and the film revolves around the baseless panic that vast trafficking rings are waiting to snatch up American kids," says Mike Rothschild, an expert on QAnon and author of The Storm is Upon Us. "Trafficking is real but films like this obscure the real issue."

"The film is marketed to Q believers in much the same way as Q works, through fear of trafficking and appeals to emotion," he says.

But Mr Ballard hit back at critics, telling Fox News that those citing conspiracy theories "make zero connection to the actual story".

He told Fox: "It's going to be very awkward when the mainstream media comes after these [trafficked] kids next and accuses them of being part of some conspiracy, when in fact they were rescued from a life of rape. It's the most bizarre thing I've ever seen in the media perhaps.

"It tells a story based in truth… I think that the left, these media outlets, they don't want to have a discussion that this film is going to compel."

Mr Ballard stepped away from OUR prior to the release of the film, the organisation said.

Box office success

Angel Studios has both denied links to QAnon and distanced itself from the remarks of the star of its surprise hit.

"Every actor has their opinions" and many have said controversial things, said Mr Harmon, the studio president.

"For us it's not about that, it's about getting a message out there… right now, there's children who are suffering."

Sound of Freedom had a long and somewhat tortured path to US movie theatres. Shot in 2018, it was bought by 21st Century Fox but shelved when that studio was bought by Disney, before being acquired by Angel - which is based not in Hollywood but Utah.

The company said 7,000 investors stumped up a total of $5m (£3.8m) earlier this year to market Sound of Freedom through social media posts and conventional advertising. And previous projects have created a pool of around 100,000 movie fans - Mr Harmon says most of them have a "faith leaning" - who spread word of the film.

"We built a grassroots movement," Mr Harmon said.

The studio also encourages moviegoers to "pay it forward" - to buy and donate the price of admission as a way to support the film, and churches and conservative organisations have bought batches of tickets.

The marketing material played heavily on concerns about real-world child trafficking. Mel Gibson endorsed the movie, and Caviezel shot a promotional clip in which he repeated a line from the film urging people to watch it: "You can send the message that God's children are not for sale."

After a week in theatres, Sound of Freedom has pulled in more than $40m. Last weekend it took nearly $20m according to IMDB, compared to $27m for the new Indiana Jones instalment and $33m for the top-grossing Insidious: The Red Door.

In total Sound of Freedom has already made $40m compared to a budget of $14.5m.

More to come

Outside the political debate, the movie has received a range of fairly positive reviews. Variety, the entertainment news site, called it a "solidly made and disquieting thriller" with "a Christian undercurrent that occasionally becomes an overcurrent".

There's also more to come from Angel Studios. Mr Harmon said he hopes Sound of Freedom will remain in theatres for months, and the studio has multiple projects on the go.

"We've got a very large theatrical slate," he said. "And our community is growing very quickly."

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sound of Freedom’ on Prime Video, the Child-Trafficking Movie That Became a Culture War Flashpoint And Box Office Sensation

Where to stream:.

• Sound of Freedom
• jim caviezel

‘Sound Of Freedom’ Subject Tim Ballard Resigned From Anti-Child Trafficking Group He Founded After Being Accused Of Sexual Harassment: Report

‘sound of freedom’ filmmaker says negative press reaction to his film is “all wrong” and “heartbreaking”, ‘sound of freedom’ crowdfunder fabian marta arrested for child kidnapping, ‘sound of freedom’ conspiracy theorists accuse amc of sabotaging screenings by turning off air conditioning: “garbage information,” responds amc ceo.

Sound of Freedom is finally streaming on Amazon Prime Video after arriving on VOD in early November 2023. That’s the least interesting part of the story surrounding this lightly faith-based movie, which became a flashpoint in the political culture war for many reasons, the primary one being star Jim Caviezel, a proponent of Qanon conspiracy theories that correlate with the film’s depiction of a child-trafficking sting operation started by Tim Ballard, a real-life ex-fed who started anti-trafficking organization Operation Underground Railroad. Bolstered by support from the MAGA crowd and a pay-it-forward marketing campaign, the movie raked in $242 million during its theatrical release, making it one of the most successful independent films ever (and gave it bragging rights for beating new Indiana Jones and Mission: Impossible movies at the box office). Now more people will see Sound of Freedom with some fresh context, as Ballard recently was booted from OUR amidst sexual misconduct and grooming allegations. The question here is whether the movie functions within and outside of all this metatext and subtext.

SOUND OF FREEDOM : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: A young Honduran girl, Rocio (Cristal Aparicio) sits on her bed, singing and drumming her sandals on the bottom of a bureau drawer. She’s got a nice voice, and that’s their in – her father (Jose Zuñiga) is approached by a would-be talent scout (Yessica Borroto) who entices him to bring Rocio and her younger brother Miguel (Lucas Avila) for an audition. We’ve already got that sinking feeling, and it’s affirmed when dad is pushed out of the room and asked to return later, and when he does, his son and daughter and all the other kids are gone without a trace. He panics. He yells. He bangs on doors. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare.

We, however, see Miguel again soon – in a photograph being ogled by a creep (Kris Avedisian) who’s uploading kiddie porn onto the internet. Just then, the cops bust in the door and tackle him. The head of the sting is Tim Ballard (Caviezel), who works for the Dept. of Homeland Security, and has to watch confiscated child-porn videos and file reports. Tough gig. A fellow agent laments the trauma he’s endured on the job: “I’ve been to a lot of murder scenes, but this shit’s different,” he says. Tim and his cohorts have busted 288 pedophiles, but they’ve saved no kids. Zero. So Tim pulls on a thread. Pretends to be a pedophile. Follows a lead to the U.S.-Mexico border. Busts a sicko as he tries to cross. In his backseat? Miguel.

Tim reunites Miguel with his father, and learns that their family isn’t complete. Rocio is still god knows where. Tim talks his boss (Kurt Fuller) into letting him follow a lead overseas – despite the fact that Tim’s an American agent at an American agency who wants to rescue a Honduran kid in Colombia. He kisses his wife (Mira Sorvino) and their legion of children goodbye and flies to Cartagena, where he amasses a crew including former cartel guy Vampiro (Bill Camp), local cop Jorge (Javier Gordino) and rich benefactor Paulo (Eduardo Verastegui). They put together a sex-club facade to lure in traffickers, and make a deal to purchase 50 child sex slaves, and at this point, Tim’s boss says it’s time to come back to the States. Tim calls his wife, and the decision here is obvious: “You quit your job and you go and rescue those kids,” she says.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Taken and The Whistleblower come to mind, with the Faith Lite ethic of movies like Jesus Revolution and American Underdog .

Performance Worth Watching: Camp’s character is the only one who has any sort of dynamic – Caviezel goes full-on intense for a flat, wooden performance – and he makes the most of it, playing his bad-guy-turned-hero fast and loose, with splashes of color.

Memorable Dialogue: This pretty much encapsulates the tone, vibe and intent of this movie:

Vampire: Hear that? That’s the sound of freedom. Tim: Amen.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Here’s a nothing-exists-in-a-vacuum take: Sound of Freedom isn’t a political movie at all, really. It just bears some of the weight of Caviezel’s idiotic Qanon baggage, which, if you aren’t aware, insists that the world is run by a secret cabal of Satanic child-sex-traffickers. In fact, the film’s villains aren’t drinking the blood of children and pushing pro-abortion legislation, but rather, they’re run-of-the-mill stereotypes who are in it for the money and/or to satiate their grotesque desires. The film’s status as a culture-war flashpoint simply played on the flimsy notion that morally righteous people will support and evangelize for a movie that condemns child trafficking, even if it’s just any old movie that condemns child trafficking, which Sound of Freedom most certainly is – and it’s worth noting that distributor Angel Studios capitalized quite nicely on this metatextual dynamic.

And here’s the vacuum take: Sound of Freedom isn’t a political movie at all, really. It’s excruciatingly earnest, a bit long-winded, tonally stiff, well-intentioned and directed with a modicum of visual panache. Director Alejandro Monteverde stages difficult-to-watch scenes of child grooming and exploitation as if he isn’t quite sure how to handle them, and they’ll make you queasy for reasons both right (we should be uncomfortable when confronted with this subject matter) and wrong (how did the filmmakers explain the content of scenes to child actors?). The film is unflinchingly on-the-nose, for better or worse, depicting Ballard as uncomplicated as the sleazy-slimy villains, who make John Rambo’s antagonists look like field mice. And yet, for a film about a man engaging in precarious subterfuge among deep-jungle guerilla traffickers, it’s weirdly boring, its tension and intensity diluted by cornball overtures (see “memorable dialogue” above), a tendency to blandly reiterate obvious emotional content (selling children for sex is bad, and it happens in real life, and you should be sad and angry about that) and Caviezel’s long, slow, brooding stares (especially the ones where he bears down and forces out some tears). On the whole, this is a functional movie, but it inspires no greater superlative than that.

Our Call: Caviezel gets a whole spiel here where he goes on about how this subject matter is “too ugly for polite conversation,” and that’s Sound of Freedom ’s thesis statement: People need to do something about child sex trafficking – and it insists this is revelatory, and not a blatantly obvious statement that billions of people would never disagree with. So I’ll go wishy-washy here: STREAM IT if you need that assertion reiterated. SKIP IT if you’re already pretty firm on your anti-trafficking stance.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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Sound of Freedom

Cast: Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino, Bill Camp

Release Date: Tue, Jul 4, 2023

Rated: PG-13

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