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Movie Review: ‘Sound of Freedom’

NEW YORK (OSV News) – “God’s children are not for sale.” Such is the motto of Tim Ballard, the indefatigably determined real-life crimefighter portrayed by Jim Caviezel in the fact-based drama “Sound of Freedom” (Angel Studios).

The story of Ballard’s battle against the sexual enslavement of kids — a horrifying form of depravity that’s disturbingly widespread — makes for a valuable and ultimately uplifting experience. But that payoff comes at an emotional cost.

Initially, viewers are taken on a heartrending descent into an underworld of utterly vicious cruelty and exploitation via the tale of two young Honduran siblings kidnapped by a ring of traffickers. While working as a U.S. Homeland Security agent, Ballard becomes passionately dedicated to resolving the pair’s case and to bringing down their abductors.

Thus the mood lightens as Ballard first devises and then leads a clever sting operation. He’s aided by Vampiro (Bill Camp), a colorful reformed gang member, and by Paul (Eduardo Verástegui), a wealthy businessman with an amateur’s interest in detective work. Ballard is also consistently cheered on by his supportive wife, Katherine (Mira Sorvino).

Ballard’s indefatigable determination — which not only drives him to imperil his career for altruistic reasons but subsequently to undertake a perilous rescue mission as well — is admirably heroic. And, as suggested by the quotation above, director and co-writer Alejandro Monteverde’s script, penned with Rod Barr, is tinged with references to faith.

Yet Ballard’s bravery is inextricably linked to the revolting evil he confronts. As a result, while moving and well-crafted, “Sound of Freedom” is also undeniably challenging. Parents may nonetheless feel that the movie’s educational impact will be sufficient to make it acceptable fare for older adolescents.

The film contains stylized violence, mature themes, a couple of mild oaths and a smattering of crude and crass language. The OSV News classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 – parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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Movie review: ‘Sound of Freedom’

“God’s children are not for sale.” Such is the motto of Tim Ballard, the indefatigably determined real-life crimefighter portrayed by Jim Caviezel in the fact-based drama “Sound of Freedom” (Angel Studios).

—John Mulderig, OSV News

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Sound of freedom - god's children are not for sale.

Film Review , Character-driven , Action/Adventure , Based on a True Story
6/29/2023 10:10:00 PM
View Count 7215

Did you know that there are more people in slavery right now than there were when slavery was legal? And millions of those are children who have been trafficked into sexual slavery.

Sound of Freedom , the new film written by Alejandro Monteverde and Rod Barr and directed by Monteverde, stars Jim Caviezel as Timothy Ballard, a real-life figure who quit his job as a federal agent to dedicate himself to rescuing children who have fallen victim to human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Coming to theaters on July 4 th , Angel Studios (the same studio behind the popular series on the life of Jesus, The Chosen ), and the filmmakers would like this incredible true story to reach as many as possible. In order to meet this goal, a "pay-it-forward" system has been set up to give people a chance to purchase a movie ticket for someone who cannot afford one. It's called the #2MillionFor2Million campaign in honor of the two million children trafficked around the world. Please go to Angel.com/sof for details on paying it forward or benefiting from a free ticket.

Sound of Freedom starts in Honduras where Roberto Aguilar (Jose Zuniga) and his two children, Rocio (Cristal Aparicio) and Miguel (Lucas Avila) welcome an attractive woman, Giselle (Yessica Borroto), into their home. She's offering a chance for both children to participate in an audition that could give them a leg up in life as child models. Only, when Roberto goes to pick up his kids at the appointed time, they're nowhere to be found. Thus begins his nightmare of empty beds.

Meanwhile, Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard (Jim Caviezel), dedicates himself to taking pedophiles off the street. Going home to his large family including his wife, Katherine, (Mira Sorvino), he feels dissatisfied that he hasn't done enough to save children from being exploited.

Through interrogation of the last guy he arrested, Tim discovers there whereabouts of some missing kids and apprehends a trafficker trying to cross the border from Mexico. That's when Miguel comes into his life and changes him forever. As Miguel tells Tim his story, Ballard learns that Miguel and his sister, Rocio, got separated in Columbia after being trafficked from their native Honduras.

There's a problem, though. His superiors won't give him the go-ahead to pursue the lead internationally and find Rocio. After consulting his wife, he quits his job and heads to Columbia, embarking on an epic search for one young girl in the midst of hostile territory and unimaginable odds.

Sound of Freedom plays like an action thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat at the same time as being a drama about Tim's first foray into rescuing trafficked kids. Caviezel's acting is spot on as he expresses Tim's horror at the reality these victims have endured and his determination to liberate them. Lucas Avila as Miguel is magnificent at conveying the intense emotion of a trafficking victim coupled with the innocence of a child who just wants his sister back. A troubling aspect of the film, though, is that it makes integration back into "normal" life after being exploited look too easy.

"God's children are not for sale," is what Tim says when he's asked why he puts himself in harm's way to rescue these children. When you come out of the film, you might ask yourself, "What can I do to help?"

One of the best things someone can do is be informed about human trafficking and other social issues. A great place to begin information-gathering is on the website of Tim Ballard's organization.

In 2013, Tim and Katherine Ballard founded O.U.R., Operation Underground Railroad, as a private foundation dedicated to rescuing children from human trafficking. Their organization continues the work Tim started and that depicted in this movie. Unlike in the film, aftercare for victims is one of the four pillars of the organization's efforts.

If all you do after seeing this film is pray for an end to child sex trafficking, it has provided one more intercessor for these children of God. If you are being called to do more, O.U.R. offers many ways to be of service to the efforts to rescue God's children. Visit them at ourrescue.org .

About the Author

Sister Hosea Rupprecht is a member of the Daughters of St. Paul, a religious community dedicated to evangelization with the media. She holds a Master of Theological Studies degree from the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto and an MA in Media Literacy from Webster University in St. Louis.

Sr. Hosea is director of the East Coast office of the Pauline Center for Media Studies, based in Staten Island, NY, and speaks on media literacy and faith to catechists, parents, youth, and young adults. Together with Father Chip Hines, she is the co-host of Searchlight, a Catholic movie review show on Catholic TV. Sr. Hosea is the author of How to Watch Movies with Kids: A Values-Based Strategy, released by Pauline Books & Media.

For the past 15 years, she has facilitated various film dialogues for both children and adults, as well as given presentations on integrating culture, faith and media.

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“Too Ugly For Polite Company”: A Film Review of “The Sound of Freedom”

“What man of you that hath an hundred sheep: and if he shall lose one of them, doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go after that which was lost, until he find it?” (Lk 15:4)

God bless Jim Caviezel. He reminds me of the leper who was healed by Jesus in Luke’s gospel–one of ten but the only one to return and give glory and thanks to God (Lk 17:11-19). I think because Caviezel himself recognizes the debt that has been settled for his life, and the ransom paid in blood, is he able to return to the screen to give God the glory in his profession as an actor. He knows he is a man who was dead to sin, but saved by Christ and set free (Rom 6:11). He knows what it means to be saved.

And God bless Tim Ballard, the real life DHS agent-turned-vigilante about whom the film is based. The Sound of Freedom is tough viewing, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be viewed. And that’s not because of any graphic depictions or lewdness, but simply because of the subject matter itself. Child sex trafficking is a multi billion (with a B) dollar industry that operates on the market principals of supply and demand. And the Devil’s business is booming.

One of the frustrating things about being awash in societal “issues”–from climate change to cobalt mining to you name it–is that it becomes easy to paint in generalities: that somewhere out there something bad is happening, and someone is vying for our attention to “do something about it.” In that sense, the producers of The Sound of Freedom are not unique in trying to mobilize action for a cause.

But as a father myself, it was very hard to be a neutral viewer. “These are God’s children,” as Ballard says in the film. I don’t think any father can really be a completely academic or neutral party in this nightmare. You see your own children in the faces of these poor children stolen and sold into a life of slavery of the most degrading type imaginable. “ How could you sleep, ” the father of the two Honduran children who Ballard sets out to rescue tells him, “ when you know their bed at home is empty? ” The fact is, as a parent of such victimization, I don’t think you ever sleep again.

That such heinous sin (let’s call it what it is) passes right under our noses, day in and day out, not just here in the U.S. but in every country in the world, it may be easy to grow numb to it and feel dis-empowered. But that’s where I think the film shines, because it highlights a man who could have easily said, “What difference does it make? We save one kid, and there are ninety-nine others who are lost?” Being ten months away from being vested in his government pension, it would have been easy to Ballard to settle in and do what he can from the sidelines, taking the safe and acceptable route of doing his part to fight this scourge.

But Ballard doesn’t do that. Realizing he is neutered by government bureaucracy that gives him the leverage to catch pedophiles while the child victims remain “out there somewhere” is a crisis of conscience for him. He heeds the call “not to hesitate” when called, leaves the Department of Homeland Security and teams up with some other players just outside the law to “go big or go home” in staging a faux “paradise island” as a method of entrapment for pedophile kingpins. A former cartel runner (who himself has his own dark reckoning with his past life and personal sin) and a well-financed entrepreneur form Ballard’s small vigilante operations team, and lead them to rescue over fifty child sex slaves in one sting.

There is another backstage hero in this film, however, and that is Ballard’s wife who fully supports this unorthodox mission: “You quit your job,” she tells him, “and you go rescue those kids.” With six kids of his own, and on his own deep in rebel territory in Colombia looking for a proverbial needle in a haystack (the sister of the first boy he rescues), this is no small act of faith on his wife’s part. There is no one looking for this poor Honduran girl. There is no incentive, no reason, no will. Except for Ballard, her fate would be sealed and she would be completely lost. He has everything to lose. I think his wife is as invested in his mission as Ballard is.

To see the panic of Rocio and Miquel’s father’s face when he returns to the “talent company staging room” to pick them up only to find it empty and his children missing is utterly heartbreaking and every parent’s nightmare. It is my own nightmare–not because it has happened to me, but because what’s to keep it from becoming my reality? It’s bad enough to know your children’s beds at home are empty, but to reckon with the reality that they are being hurt or abused in some way, and you are completely powerless to help them, is a thousand times worse. And this happens to tens of thousands of children–God’s children–every day, both at home and abroad. They are like lumps of coal, these victims, these child slaves, feeding the insatiable furnace of depravity that we perpetuate by our own complicity with sin.

The sheer scale of this insatiable appetite for the corruption of innocent flesh is almost incomprehensible. The sins cry to Heaven for justice, and as Ballard quotes Matthew 18:6 in the film to one of the pedophiles “ Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and be cast into the sea. ”

And yet many of these lost children are never found, but remain chained in slavery of the most horrible kind, their innocence crucified on a tree at the hands of vile men. For every one that is rescued, hundreds remain in bondage. This has the potential to be a great challenge to one’s faith in a good and loving Father and in his only begotten Son who debased himself to come to earth and search out the one that was lost (Lk 15:4) when they remain out there, somewhere, in a dark room subjected to unspeakable traumas.

And yet, “there is no one righteous, no not one” (Rom 3:10; Ps 14:3). Many of us are complicit in the sins of the flesh which have perpetuated this abominable slave ship, though–we fuel it not just with clicks and downloads, but by our apathy and fence-sitting in the face of such evil. Christ was utterly crushed by the weight of sin (Is 53:5)– our sin . He came to ransom us, left a comfortable Heaven to debase himself here on earth (Phil 2:7) and pay the price with his sacrifice and death (Rom 5:7-8). He was innocence itself (1 Pt 3:18).

I don’t know Tim Ballard’s back story, if he is a Christian or not, but I will say Jim Caviezel was the right man to play him in this role. When Tim is describing his “line of work” to someone in the film, he mentions that this reality (of sex trafficking) is “too ugly for polite company.”

And that hits home. Sin is ugly and it is real, and Christ didn’t die on a cross in some removed, prim and proper manner amidst polite company. He was scourged and mocked, reviled with contempt and beaten to a pulp, among “bad men.” God “got his hands dirty” to ransom us from perdition, and sacrificed his son, his only begotten son, to do it. There was no other way to bridge that divide. And if we are to imitate Christ in his life as his disciples, we cannot sit balancing on a fence. We, too, are called to get our hands dirty, sacrifice, and pay ransoms to set captives free. Whatever capacity one does that is between him and God. But he cannot be passive, cannot be neutral.

God bless Tim Ballard for leaving the ninety-nine to seek out the lost one, and God bless Jim Caviezel for taking on this role. The Sound of Freedom deserves our support, and not as a charity case either. Though I viewed the film through the eyes of a Christian, it is not an overtly or even remotely “religious” film. It is well shot, well acted, and is a compelling if not difficult watch; well worth a trip to the theaters to see. I hope this film goes mainstream and convicts the heart of those who view it–even if the subject matter is “too ugly for polite company.”

This post originally appeared on Rob’s blog, Pater Familias .

Tagged as: Best of Week , movie review

By Robert Marco

Rob Marco is a married father of three. He holds a MA in Theology from Villanova University. He is the author of Wisdom and Folly: Essays on Faith, Life, and Everything in Between (Cruachan Hill Press, 2024) He blogs at Pater Familias.

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Fr. Mike Schmitz Reviews “Sound of Freedom” Movie

Today, Fr. Mike shares his honest review of the film, “Sound of Freedom,” currently in theaters, and offers a word of encouragement for how each of us can confront this terrible reality head-on and proactively do something about it.

Meet Fr. Mike Schmitz

Fr. Mike Schmitz serves as Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry for the Diocese of Duluth and as chaplain for the Newman Catholic Campus Ministry at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

He is a presenter in Ascension’s Chosen , Altaration , and The 99 programs, and has a channel on Ascension Presents . He is also the host of the Ascension podcasts The Bible in a Year and The Catechism in a Year .

Thank you for speaking for these “slaves of fallen humanity” – God’s children.

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Before you go

A new film starring Jim Caviezel aims to move millions to end the scourge of child trafficking.

“ Sound of Freedom ,” directed by Alejandro Monteverde, will debut in theaters July 4 with Caviezel starring as Tim Ballard, who began his career at the CIA and then spent more than a decade as a special agent for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security battling child exploitation. Assigned to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Ballard was deployed as an undercover operative for the U.S. Child Sex Tourism Jump Team, infiltrating criminal organizations that sexually abused and trafficked children.

In 2013, Ballard and a team of former agents left DHS to form Operation Underground Railroad, a private foundation that assists international governments and U.S. law enforcement in dismantling criminal trafficking organizations that target children.

Ballard has testified before Congress on child trafficking and has advocated vigorously to raise awareness of the issue, which is estimated to affect at least 1.7 million children globally, according to the International Labor Organization.

For Caviezel, portraying Ballard — and replicating his dramatic real-life rescues of enslaved children — is a role second only to that of playing Jesus in “The Passion of the Christ,” with a similarly compelling mission.

Ahead of the film’s opening, the “Sound of Freedom” team is looking to sell “2 million tickets for 2 million children” trapped in trafficking, Caviezel told OSV News. “That’s been the goal all along.”

The film’s distributor, Angel Studios, is using technology it developed for its hit series “The Chosen” to enable viewers to buy tickets so that others can watch for free, or to claim donated tickets if they are unable to afford the purchase price.

Both Caviezel and producer Eduardo Verástegui told OSV News that the film has been a labor of both faith and love for the past eight years.

Jim Caviezel stars in a scene from the movie “Sound of Freedom.” Caviezel and producer Eduardo Verástegui share how faith prepared them for their new film.

“I was in Los Angeles and met Tim Ballard and his team — ex-CIA agents, ex-FBI agents — and I learned what they were doing, traveling around the world undercover, rescuing children that were kidnapped for sexual exploitation,” said Verástegui. “And I was in shock. I couldn’t sleep for a few days when they told me what was going on.”

Verástegui said he decided to counter the problem with “a weapon of mass instruction and inspiration — film.”

Caviezel and Verástegui drew on their deeply held Catholic faith to overcome what the latter called “so many obstacles” that gave way to “so many miracles” in making the film.

“Every time I do a film, I pray the rosary and my prayer is that God would use us to really be whatever he needs us to be,” said Caviezel. “In this particular case, it’s a weapon against the greatest evil right now we’ve ever seen. And when the public really wakes up and sees this, it’s going to blow their minds how wicked those people (are) that do what they do with these children.”

“I pray the rosary every day,” said Verástegui. “That’s my biggest weapon. I go to Mass every day. … Without that, there’s no way I can do what I’m doing right now.”

Caviezel also prepared for filming by attending Mass and receiving the sacrament of reconciliation “to get as pure as I can in my soul,” he said, admitting that researching the horrors of child sex trafficking by working with law enforcement provoked both nightmares and tears.

In addition, “fasting had to happen,” said Caviezel, especially for a project that sought to expose the sexual slavery of children. “You’re going to have a lot of bad demons that are not going to like that. … Scripture says some demons can only be removed by prayer and fasting.”

The Holy Spirit provided inspiration for “taking and elevating” the script by Monteverde and Rod Barr into a triumphant story of good conquering evil, said Caviezel — and without directly portraying lurid details of the film’s subject matter.

In one scene, his character reviews a confiscated child pornography video to file a DHS report, but the film manages to convey the horror by instead showing only Caviezel’s eye as he types up his testimony.

“The scene wasn’t written that way, but … it takes you right to the edge,” said Caviezel. “I needed to take it to that point, because I needed the public to understand that when Tim would come home and his children would run to him, he would literally fall on his knees and start weeping in their arms.”

Verástegui said as producer he stressed the importance of “how we treat people on set,” particularly the child actors.

“They never knew what this film was about,” he said. “How can you explain what child pornography is to actors that are 5, 6 years old? The parents were there, and Alejandro (Monteverde) was literally protecting the integrity and the innocence of the children on set with their parents. He had that ability to tell them different stories to bring the emotions and the tears. In the editing, you see the real deal, but on set, they never knew the reality.”

Ballard himself was impressed by the film’s veracity, said Verástegui.

While viewing the on-set replay of the key rescue scene, the veteran operative “started crying … and broke in pieces,” amazed to see his life story amplified to aid others, he said.

He and Caviezel are passionate about galvanizing the film’s viewers to end child sex trafficking and enslavement.

“The power of this is that your heart gets on fire,” said Caviezel. “Why does it get on fire? Because they feel the love of Jesus. … You’re not afraid anymore.”

For more information on “Sound of Freedom” and to purchase tickets, visit the movie’s website at angel.com/freedom .

Motherhood is not a liability but a gift to women, vatican says at u.n., sound of freedom — pg-13 (a-lll), film stars, genocide survivor, podcasting priest kick off hallow ‘pray40 challenge’, pray and work.

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‘Sound of Freedom’ Rings True

Hollywood Double Standard Reveals Critics’ Hypocrisy

Jim Caviezel (l) and Javier Godino star in ‘Sound of Freedom.’

A former colleague in EWTN’s Theology Department is both an avid reader and an insightful film buff. As such, he has an apt way of distinguishing non-fiction literature from cinematic efforts.

“If you want history, read a book,” he says in response to those who complain when a film is less than strictly factual. “If you want to be entertained, watch a movie.”

My friend understands that movies based on real-life persons and events should reflect basic reality, and yet he understands that embellishing — and even fictionalizing historical elements — is a longstanding Hollywood formula for telling a good story in the service of promoting larger truths about events and people.

To be clear, cinematic license should never be libelous, such as in The Scarlet and the Black , a great movie in many respects, but also one that reaffirms the defamation that Venerable Pope Pius XII was aloof and silent at best during World War II, when, in fact, he was rather proactive in rescuing Jews and even plotting to assassinate Der Fuehrer . So much for “Hitler’s Pope.”

But consider the 1998 cinematic blockbuster Saving Private Ryan . The “rescue” of Sgt. Frederick “Fritz” Niland — the real-life “Private Ryan” — wasn’t nearly as dramatic as Steven Spielberg portrayed it in his movie, as the Knights of Columbus affirmed in their monthly magazine .

But did the media and others excoriate Spielberg for his fictionalized elements? No. They understood that the famous director was taking legitimate creative license in portraying the larger truths of the horrors and heroism of war.

Did many brave young men give their lives on D-Day to capture a Nazi stronghold on the coast of France, as the film graphically depicts? Yes. Did many other soldiers give their lives for a noble cause, including saving their fellow soldiers and civilians, as Saving Private Ryan depicts? Yes. Did Spielberg take significant creative liberties in presenting the saga of Sgt. Niland? Also yes.

Sound of Freedom and Selective Outrage

In grave contrast, much of the media’s response to Sound of Freedom , the unexpected hit of the cinematic summer , has been contemptuous.

Does the movie include fictionalized elements, even though it’s promoted as “the incredible true story” of Tim Ballard , a former Homeland Security agent who left his job to rescue trafficked children through the Underground Railroad ? Yes, as its moviemakers have acknowledged . Are those fictionalized elements at the service of the larger truths that human trafficking of children is wicked, widespread, and so should be rooted out? No doubt. So is the film raising awareness about this most reprehensible trade, and have Ballard and the Underground Railroad actually rescued children who were trafficked? For sure .

Nevertheless, critics have been in uproar, first about the movie’s alleged QAnon underpinnings , although Newsweek , to its credit, quoted the film’s star, Jim Caviezel who noted the movie was made in 2018: "I never knew about them [QAnon] while I was doing this movie Sound of Freedom; it has nothing to do with our film.” Anyone who has actually seen the movie would have to agree.

In addition, there are headlines like this one from Rolling Stone : “Why Anti-Trafficking Experts Are Torching ‘Sound of Freedom’: The new movie offers a ‘false perception’ of child trafficking that experts worry could further harm the real victims.”

Huh? How could a movie that dramatically portrays the evil of pedophiles and human trafficking “further harm the real victims?”:

‘I’ve literally been on four different group texts about the movie,’ says Erin Albright , an attorney who has worked in the anti-trafficking space for 15 years, including as a former fellow for the Department of Justice’s anti-trafficking task force. Albright says Sound of Freedom is ‘grounded in this sensational perspective of what child trafficking would be,’ rather than reflecting its grim reality.

Yes, most trafficked kids are adolescents, not younger children. And yes, those trafficked are more gradually groomed by their predators, who pose as friends of their sexual prey, in contrast to the more expeditious betrayal of parents presented in Sound of Freedom .

But are we dealing with child sexual predators both in real life and in the movie? Yes. And does the movie give us a glimpse into the nefarious minds of both the traffickers and their customers? Absolutely.

Nevertheless, Rolling Stone also argues that

the movie, and films about human trafficking in general, also doesn’t provide much insight into the extensive process of providing support to victims and helping them deal with their trauma after they escape a dangerous situation. This process can take years, says Jean Bruggeman, executive director of Freedom Network USA, the nation’s largest coalition of anti-trafficking advocates and service providers.

A movie can only do so much. It shouldn’t be confused with a documentary, let alone a non-fiction book that treats a subject more magisterially. More to the point, Sound of Freedom does show that human trafficking has long-term negative effects on its victims, including when an anti-trafficking leader recalls his conversion after he realized that the prostitute he had just patronized years before, was not, in fact, 25, as she initially appeared, but a veteran (though wounded) streetwalker all of just 14.

In addition, at the end of Sound of Freedom , the nonverbal expressions of Cristal Aparicio’s character speak poignant volumes about the horrific ordeal she’s endured. She’s obviously been traumatized, and she even seems upset that her father hadn’t prevented these unspeakable crimes from happening to her. Still, she gradually embraces her dad and then her little brother, indicating that the healing process has finally begun , not magically — and instantaneously — accomplished, as in a fairytale.

Criticism for the Critics

Also, for all of the Sound of Freedom critics, where is their cinematic alternative? Sound of Freedom had been on the shelf for five years . That’s more than enough time to have preempted it with something “more accurate” and “less sensational,” yet which could’ve cashed in on the demand for a good movie on the subject.

What gives?

Bottom line, critics aren’t fond of Caviezel, who endured a lot of occupational flak after he portrayed Jesus in The Passion of the Christ almost 20 years ago; and they don’t like director Alejandro Monteverde and producer Eduardo Verástegui, who have previously worked on projects like Bella and Unplanned , which obviously run counter to Hollywood dogma with their pro-life messages.

Sound of Freedom’s message that “God’s children are not for sale” is also an unpleasant reminder that the Almighty exists, that there is a moral law, and that we will all — one day — have to render an account for our life decisions. But replace Caviezel, Monteverde and Verástegui with Tom Hanks, Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg, and the outrage about accuracy for the very same film never would’ve manifested, or not been nearly as harsh.

In any event, Instead of ripping on Sound of Freedom , critics should engage in genuinely righteous anger and begin a crusade against pornography , which fuels the human trafficking industry , and the related sexual objectification of women and men in PG, PG–13 and R movies. But that’d take courage seldom seen in Hollywood for decades.

sound of freedom
jim caviezel
child trafficking

Tom Nash Tom Nash has served the Church professionally for more than 35 years, including as a theology advisor at the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN). He is a contributing apologist for Catholic Answers, and a contributing writer for both the National Catholic Register and Catholic World Report. Tom appears as a periodic guest host for Kresta in the Afternoon and has appeared as a regular guest apologist on Catholic Answers Live for more than a decade. Tom is the author of The Biblical Roots of the Mass , What Did Jesus Do?: The Biblical Roots of the Catholic Church , and 20 Answers: The Rosary . He is also a contributing author to Catholic for a Reason: Scripture and the Mystery of the Mass , and Faith Facts: Answers to Catholic Questions, Vols. I and II . He is also a Regular Member of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

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Fr. Mike Schmitz Reviews "Sound of Freedom" Movie The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast

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In our world today, there are millions trapped in slavery and sex trafficking. The most horrific and devastating example of this is the sale of the weakest and most vulnerable in society, our children. Today, Fr. Mike shares his honest review of the film, "Sound of Freedom," currently in theaters, and offers a word of encouragement for how each of us can confront this terrible reality head-on and proactively do something about it. Support The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast

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“Sound of Freedom” (Angel Studios)

Jim Caviezel stars in a scene from the movie “Sound of Freedom.” The OSV News classification of the theatrical version was A-III -- adults. (OSV News photo/Angel Studios)

NEW YORK (OSV News) — “God’s children are not for sale.” Such is the motto of Tim Ballard, the indefatigably determined real-life crimefighter portrayed by Jim Caviezel in the fact-based drama “Sound of Freedom” (Angel Studios).

(The movie opens on Tuesday, July 4, and will be shown in theaters around the Diocese of Peoria, including Bloomington, Champaign, Galesburg, Macomb, Moline, Normal, Ottawa, Pekin, Peoria, Peru, and Streator.)

WELL-CRAFTED, CHALLENGING

Ballard’s determination — which not only drives him to imperil his career for altruistic reasons but subsequently to undertake a perilous rescue mission as well — is admirably heroic. And, as suggested by the quotation above, director and co-writer Alejandro Monteverde’s script, penned with Rod Barr, is tinged with references to faith.

The film contains stylized violence, mature themes, a couple of mild oaths and a smattering of crude and crass language. The OSV News classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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‘Sound of Freedom’ makes history at the box office

Children exploited by traffickers from "Sound of Freedom"

By Francesca Pollio Fenton

Denver, Colo., Jul 18, 2023 / 12:00 pm

“Sound of Freedom,” an anti-human-trafficking film made by Catholic filmmakers Eduardo Verástegui and Alejandro Monteverde and starring Catholic actor Jim Caviezel, continues to top the box office charts.

The film currently sits behind the new “Mission Impossible” at the No. 2 spot on the box office charts, beating out other expected summer hits, according to Box Office Mojo .

“Sound of Freedom” was released in theaters across the country on July 4 and had an incredibly successful opening day in which it reached No. 1 at the box office, beating out Disney’s fifth “Indiana Jones” installment and raking in $14.24 million.

The film was originally produced under 20th Century Fox and finished in 2018, but it was dropped after Disney bought the studio. Only after being acquired by Angel Studios, known for its TV show “The Chosen,” did “Sound of Freedom” finally make it into theaters.

In over one week, the film increased its weekly gross revenue from $20 million to $27 million, totaling a gross revenue of $85.5 million since its opening.

Additionally, “Sound of Freedom” made box office history when its revenue increased by 37% from the previous week’s earnings.

Bradon Purdie, head of theatrical distribution for Angel Studios, said in a press release published on July 16: “There have only been 10 wide-release movies in box office history that have had a second-weekend increase greater than 35% over their opening weekend. All of them achieved this milestone during Christmas. Angel Studios is the only studio to accomplish this feat during the summer blockbuster season with ‘Sound of Freedom.’”

“While the entire summer movie box office lineup is underperforming, our small independent film continues to grow week over week. Driven by millions of fans and supporters, ‘Sound of Freedom’ has become a national — and soon international — movement for change,” said Jared Geesey, senior vice president of global distribution at Angel Studios.

“Sound of Freedom” tells the true story of Tim Ballard, a Homeland Security agent who, after rescuing a young boy from traffickers, learns that the boy’s sister is still captive. He quits his job and puts his life at risk as he embarks on a dangerous journey through the Colombian jungle to save the little girl. During the mission, Ballard ends up saving 123 people, 55 of whom are children.

In a June interview with CNA , Caviezel said that “Sound of Freedom“ “is the best film I’ve done since the ‘Passion of the Christ.’”

Verástegui shared in an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that he sees the movie’s success as a “miracle.” He explained why he believes this is the case.

“Many doors were closed to us over these years; Disney, Netflix, Amazon, and other distribution houses said ‘no, this film is not for us, it’s not good business, nobody is going to see a film about child trafficking,’ they claimed. Faced with these refusals, we had two options: Give up and throw in the towel, or — when it comes to saving lives — don’t give up, keep going and persevere for as long as necessary.”

“And the movement for freedom is already a fact, it’s underway, and it’s growing, growing, growing without stopping; they can’t stop it. That is the miracle: That in a world of lies and attacks, the truth makes its way, takes first place, and many lives will be saved thanks to this. Because in times of universal lies, Orwell said, telling the truth constitutes a revolutionary act,” Verástegui said.

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Sound of Freedom

The story of Ballard’s battle against the sexual enslavement of kids – a horrifying form of depravity that’s disturbingly widespread – makes for a valuable and ultimately uplifting experience. But that payoff comes at an emotional cost.

Ballard’s indefatigable determination – which not only drives him to imperil his career for altruistic reasons but subsequently to undertake a perilous rescue mission as well – is admirably heroic. And, as suggested by the quotation above, director and co-writer Alejandro Monteverde’s script, penned with Rod Barr, is tinged with references to faith.

The film contains stylized violence, mature themes, a couple of mild oaths and a smattering of crude and crass language. The OSV News classification is A-III – adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 – parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Editor’s note:

Jim Caviezel and Eduardo Verástegui share their thoughts on making “Sound of Freedom.”

The Perverted Critics of Sound of Freedom

Audio only:

In this episode Trent looks at criticism of the recent film Sound of Freedom and shows how our culture is threatened when powerful, subtle truths threaten their cherished lies.

To support this channel: https://www.patreon.com/counseloftrent

Transcript:

Welcome to the Counsel of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.

Trent Horn: Welcome to the Counsel of Trent Podcast. I’m your host Catholic Answers apologist, Trent Horn. Normally I don’t comment on movies or current events, but today I noticed something that does relate to the challenge of sharing our faith in the modern world, and it has to do with some of the absurd responses I’ve seen in the mainstream media to the new movie, Sound of Freedom. And that movie is like this channel. You should like it, subscribe to see it, subscribe to our channel. I don’t know. Like this video, subscribe to the channel, check us out at trenthornpodcast.com as well if you want to support all the work that we’re doing here. We have live streams, bonus content, check all that out. All right, so Sound of Freedom is kind of a crime drama directed by Alejandro Monteverde and it’s stars Jim Caviezel, who is most famously known for playing another JC, Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson’s, The Passion.

The film is based on the true life story of former Homeland security specialist Tim Ballard, who left the agency to work full-time rescuing children who have been abducted and put into human sex trafficking. Now you might think, wow, human trafficking is really evil and it’s a good thing that a well-produced movie is taking on this evil. Oh dear viewer, you assume too much of mainstream media. Since the movie came out, it’s been ignored by most critics and the major ones who have watched it, they dismissed the movie as simply about promoting conspiracy theories. Why are they doing this?

One explanation is that the critics reject Jim Caviezel’s ties to various QAnon conspiracy theories, and I might buy that if the reviews went something like this. If they said, “Sound of Freedom is a well-made film, it tackles an important subject, even though it’s star, Jim Caviezel, has dabbled in conspiracy theories related to human trafficking. In spite of that, this is still a good and important film worth seeing.” But they don’t say anything like that. Instead, they have this kind of disgust about the movie, and they don’t have a similar disgust about the exploitation of children that happens in trafficking. If anything, they minimize it. But these same media outlets praise films that do sexually exploit children. So I have another theory that explains why the media is seemingly at war with the film, the Sound of Freedom, and how this relates to us sharing our faith, especially the controversial moral aspects of our faith that the world rejects, how that relates to how we share that to the world at large.

Here’s what I think. The world rejects any truth that threatens their lies, especially powerful subtle truths. Unfortunately, a lot of Christian films are pretty heavy-handed with their message or they have low production values so the media can easily ignore or ridicule them. But sometimes a film has high quality production and it doesn’t come off as propaganda, it’s powerful and subtle. It doesn’t make you defensive when you watch it. Instead, it makes you think the following, “Wow, culturally unacceptable X is really, really bad. But wait a minute, culturally acceptable Y isn’t much different than culturally unacceptable X. Maybe Y is as bad as X.” Here’s two examples.

The first would be Matt Walsh’s film, What is a Woman? Why did the Media Ignore this film? It’s because the film is good and restrained. Walsh doesn’t give a bunch of monologues with over the top rhetoric. He actually comes off quite meek. He just asks normal questions that make gender ideologues look insane. So the media fears this will happen to average people who watch the film. Wow, being completely deluded about reality and mutilating children is really, really bad. Wait a minute, transgender ideology isn’t much different than being completely deluded about reality and mutilating children. In fact, it is those things. Therefore transgender ideology is really, really bad. But in spite of the fact that millions of people have seen What is a Woman?, there are as of this filming only eight reviews of it on Rotten Tomatoes, none from major critics. The movie’s too dangerous for them to engage. And here’s the second example.

In 2013, an abortionist named Kermit Gosnell was put on trial for multiple counts of murder of born infants and of women who obtained abortions, as well as dozens of counts of illegal abortion. Even by our culture’s standards that ignores abortion as murder, Gosnell is probably one of America’s most prolific serial killers. He may have killed hundreds of born infants who were scheduled to be aborted, but when the trial began, the news media refused to cover it and they said, “It’s just a local crime story. Why bother?” Of course, they all covered the story of a boy in a red hat at the Lincoln Memorial smiling at a Native American man beating a [inaudible 00:04:56] fake. That was worthy of national news, while Gosnell’s murders were just a local crime story.

Eventually social media users pressured mainstream media outlets to cover the story, and they made all kinds of excuses for being late to the game. But the more honest commenters admitted that they didn’t want to cover the story at first because it got too close to refuting the lies of the abortion industry. In 2018, a good movie about the trial and its lack of media coverage called Gosnell was released, but as of now, it has only 15 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and all the famous outlets like the LA Times or Forbes give it a negative review. But the film inevitably forces you to confront abortion in a way pro-choice advocates don’t want you to think about it. Gosnell murdered babies because he aborted them one minute after birth instead of a minute before birth. What’s the difference?

Or you start to think like this, “Wow, infanticide is really, really bad. Wait a minute, abortion isn’t much different than infanticide. Therefore, abortion is really, really bad.” So they have to ignore it because of the questions it causes people to ask, and I think the same thing is happening with Sound of Freedom, which is weird because Sound of Freedom is not connected to a hot button issue like abortion. Surely everyone agrees that trafficking children is wrong. Sure, but not everyone thinks sexualizing children is wrong. Some of them think it’s a sign of empowerment that needs to be validated or they think kids can be exposed to sex in healthy ways.

Speaker 3: Three books that discuss LGBTQ themes are off the shelves at Waukee High School. The school says the books are under review after parents claim they contain unsuitable content for students.

Speaker 4: The text describes an inappropriate sexual relationship between the young main character and his much older male cousin. That book, along with Gender Queer and Lawn Boy have been called for a review by the Waukee School Board. All three of these titles described LGBTQ themes.

Speaker 5: The truth is Gender Queer and other queer books are made more difficult to access for age appropriate people in the name of saving the children from grooming. Here we go again. It’s a made up moral panic.

Speaker 4: Gender Queer depicted a sexually explicit cartoon, one parent displayed to the board.

Speaker 6: This is also in the book, Gender Queer, at Northwest High School, available for children as young as 14 years old.

Trent Horn: Why do you think the media dotes over child drag stars like Desmond is Amazing and have him gyrate on Good Morning America?

This is the Drag The Kids To Pride event at Mr. Misster’s in Dallas’s Oak Lawn neighborhood. Organizers promoted it as a family friendly drag show where kids danced with the performers.

In fact, Hollywood and popular culture has always had a kind of creepy obsession with kids. The 1968 film, Romeo and Juliet features a topless 16-year-old Olivia Hussey. In 1978, Brooke Shields starred as a child prostitute in the film Pretty Baby, and the 1980 film Blue Lagoon featured her as a nearly naked 14 year old. The director even had her and her 18-year old co-star tan naked next to each other so they wouldn’t have tan lines. Even the animated film Aladdin portrays 16 year old Jasmine as too hot to handle, and the list goes uncomfortably on and on. The most recent example would be the 2020 Netflix film Cuties, which takes the ages of the children down to an even more disturbing age of 11 and defends them publicly twerking as an empowering narrative directed by a woman of color.

It’s striking to compare what critics say about Cuties versus what they say about Sound of Freedom. Consider the reviews in Rolling Stone Magazine. The author says, “Cuties is not a salacious bit of pedo bait designed to appeal to baser instincts rather than better angels.” In regards to the poster, the reviewer says, “Out of context, the girls’ outfits look questionably flashy and trashy. Seen in context, as the costumes for a hip hop dance troupe competing for a grand prize, you understand how they function in regards to a bigger picture message.” Reviewers consistently blamed Netflix for using a provocative movie poster for the film instead of the original French poster. But what they’re really doing is complaining that Netflix said the quiet part out loud. This is not an unrelated promotional image. The image comes from the movie’s final dance number, and it’s so awful. I cannot in good conscience show it to you. Instead, I’ll let a popular YouTuber summarize its awfulness here.

Speaker 7: I understand that the point of the movie is supposed to make you uncomfortable with the subject matter of kids being sexualized. It’s supposed to speak out against how it’s a terrible thing, but it’s so poorly conveyed that they’ve just ended up making a movie that hyper sexualizes kids. And the camera operator, I don’t know who’s working the camera for this movie, it must be Dan Schneider, because the camera operator’s going up each girl’s (beep) right up for a colonoscopy. When they spread their legs, he speed runs over there to get the camera as close as possible. And again, these are actual children actresses. These aren’t adults playing kids. These are actual 11, 12 year olds. They’re children. Let me show you a review from a YouTuber who watched this movie and let me show you what their takeaway was.

Speaker 8: They’re pretty hot. You can say whatever you want about me. It’s not my fault. I didn’t make them do that. They did that. That’s the point. That’s the whole point of the movie is that you’re supposed to be sitting there thinking, “Look at the blonde one.” You’re supposed to be sitting there holding these two thoughts in your head, and one, that these are kids. And the other, that they’re hot.

Speaker 7: That’s the message that people are walking away from the movie with. Pedophiles with the biggest smile on their face pumping their fists in the air. Thanks Netflix. Just easily accessible, softcore child porn.

Trent Horn: If you wanted to make a film about the dangers of girls sexualizing themselves, you can do that without showing the girls in sexual ways. You can use film tricks like silhouette blur or just using reaction shots or any number of tricks to make your point. Instead, this is just showing faux child porn, but we’re supposed to praise it because if children can own their sexuality, they can be liberated. Here’s what Rolling Stones said about Sound of Freedom though. And remember, Cuties is not salacious at all. It’s a cute coming of age film. But they say Sound of Freedom is “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.” Except it’s not exploitative. Sound of Freedom is very restrained and independent reviewers of the film who aren’t affiliated with mainstream media agree Sound of Freedom does a great job at showing the exploitation of children without exploiting children in the process.

Speaker 9: This is a very real look at the world of child trafficking. Not to say it’s graphic, it’s a PG-13 movie. I appreciate that about it. We know what happens to these children when they’re trafficked. We don’t need to see it. I like the fact that the film knows that you don’t have to show it to know it.

Speaker 10: And guess what? Sound of Freedom is really (beep) good. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it deserves the hype and praise that it’s been getting, managing to tackle some pretty brutal subject matter in a sensitive and restrained way that never feels exploitative, delivering some excellent performances from a talented cast that don’t overshadow their roles, and a storyline that feels neatly grounded in the true events that it’s been based on.

Trent Horn: So compare that to Cuties, which even if it claims it’s showing how children are exploited, really does end up exploiting them in the process, but reviewers don’t care. And it’s not just Rolling Stone, rogerebert.com gave Sound of Freedom to stars saying it was dull and solemn. But it gave Cuties four stars. It even hosted an open letter from female directors to the director of Cuties thanking her for the film’s “sensitive portrayal of the emergent sexuality of young girls.” And remember the characters in Cuties are 11 years old. Jezebel calls Sound of Freedom, “An anti-child trafficking fantasy fit for QAnon.” And says, “Any movie portraying exploitation of this sort runs the risk of effectively reiterating it. And Sound of Freedom contains queasy scenes that feature kids looking scared in beds or posing quasi provocatively for cameras. Ballard throws the kid he rescues in a van that speeds away, and the only thing that visually distinguishes this from a kidnapping is the implied virtue.”

So Sound of Freedom is basically creepy, quasi exploitative. But here’s what Jebel said of Cuties. “The feature has received a lot of criticism for allegedly sexualizing its young stars. A lot of the backlash probably has to do with the truly blank marketing materials cooked up by Netflix for the film’s stateside release” The Verge reports. “Including a poster that shows the dance team members posing seductively in skimpy performance outfits. A visual that within the context of the film is supposed to make the viewer uncomfortable.” So if the Sound of Freedom makes viewers uncomfortable, it’s propaganda. But if Cuties makes you uncomfortable, it’s art and you don’t appreciate it.

The media is also engaged in a blackout campaign against the Sound of Freedom. Rolling Stone Magazine gave three stars to Cuties, but there’s no Rolling Stone review for Sound of Freedom in their TV section, movie section. Instead, there’s just an op-ed bashing the film that was selected as a review for Rotten Tomatoes. In fact, as of this recording, there are only 22 reviews of Sound of Freedom and only 3 of them counted as top critics. In contrast, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny has over 300 reviews, dozens of which come from top critics. What’s most embarrassing for Hollywood is that Sound of Freedom beat Indiana Jones on the July 4th box office, and did so on fewer screens. It’ll be a huge financial success and easily make back its modest budget, but Indiana Jones is going to lose the Walt Disney Company hundreds of millions of dollars. What’s even more ironic is that Disney had the rights to Sound of Freedom in 2018 and wanted to dump the film before they sold it to another studio and distributor.

Now, some people say Disney dumped the film and critics have been harsh towards it because the movie is allegedly inaccurate, that it exaggerates Ballard’s story, it gets facts wrong, but when has that ever stopped Hollywood from making a successful film? Vice News and other media outlets have run pieces criticizing the film’s accuracy, but you don’t see the media doing the same thing with a film called The Woman King. It’s about an all female troop of soldiers in the 19th century, West African Kingdom of Dahomey. The movie makes Dahomey and its king look like strong opponents of the slave trade, but that’s false. In reality, King Ghezo, one of the few actual historical characters in the film, he fought the British Empire on several occasions to protect his kingdom’s involvement with the slave trade. But if the movie promotes a woman of color, facts just don’t matter. Instead, the unusual opposition to Sound of Freedom sounds more like an unconscious fear that people will start to think the following.

“Selling children as sexual objects is really, really bad. Wait a minute. Pop culture’s portrayal of children as sexual objects isn’t that much different. Therefore, pop culture’s portrayal of children is really, really bad.” In fact, the Rolling Stone article says the film feeds, “Delusion by fomenting moral panic over this grossly exaggerated epidemic of child sex trafficking.” But the evidence of that is just a link to an article saying that sex trafficking claims at Target were hoaxes. It then says “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 sorted fantasies about godless monsters hurting children.”

Give me a freaking break. Sure. Maybe some moms were mistaken about human traffickers being at Target. That’s a story I’ve actually covered here on Free For All Friday, but come on. According to the International Labor Union, over 1 million children are exploited each year in commercial sex trades. What’s really disappointing though is we see the same thing in the Catholic Church, when liberal Catholics will go on and on about the grossly exaggerated dangers of mass shootings or climate change, but then act like abortion and sodomy really aren’t a big deal deal. Or they say that school board fights to keep pornographic descriptions of gay sex out of children’s libraries are the work of misguided culture warriors. And when parents try to read these disgusting things at school board meetings, they get thrown out for being obscene.

Speaker 11: 15 year old daughter at a local high school.

Speaker 12: Kendra Evans appears to be rattled as she stands before the Clark County School District Board last week, the mother claiming her daughter was upset about what her high school teacher assigned her to memorize in front of her class and sharing a portion with the board.

Speaker 13: I don’t love you. It’s not you. It’s just I don’t like your (beep) or any (beep) in that case.

Speaker 12: CCSD board members quickly stop the public comment over the derogative language and the mic is turned off.

Speaker 14: And then you can discuss the process by which these books get on the shelves because there’s a Clay County employee that got paid to put this book, Lucky by Alice Sebold. I’m going to read things. If there’s children watching cover their ears. “He began to knead …”

Speaker 15: I’m going to stop you right there, sir. I’m going to stop you right there.

Speaker 14: … Fingers into it.

Speaker 16: Turn the microphone off.

Speaker 15: Turn off his microphone, please. I’ve told you I’m stopping you. The reason I’m stopping you is because these meetings are … If you’ll hush your mouth for a minute and listen, instead of just talking, you might learn something.

Speaker 14: It’s safe enough for our schools and our children we should be able to listen to it.

Speaker 15: Well the problem is, sir, is these meetings are broadcast.

Trent Horn: So I think it’s obvious that a film that gets people to really question how children are sexualized these days, there are many people in Hollywood and in culture that don’t like it because people will look at woke libraries and the books that are present there, look at drag shows where children are invited, children are invited to LGBT Pride parades and the debauchery that happens there, the idea of exposing kids to sex safely. And people will start to reconsider that and think, “Hey, maybe we should just keep sex away from kids. There’s a bright idea.” Truly, we live in the Twilight Zone. So what can Christians learn about sharing their message in media from all of this?

First, we should support creators like the team behind Sound of Freedom that make films that are powerful but don’t come off as propaganda. Ironically, some of the best movies to promote Christian moral themes were not even made by Christians. The truth was just an unintentional byproduct of them trying to tell a good story. For example, the 2007 film, Juno, where the pregnant title character does not get an abortion. The reason she doesn’t is because a single pro-life demonstrator at the abortion facility tells her that her baby has fingernails. There’s also a great scene where Juno, the character, is in the waiting room at the abortion facility and notices everyone tapping their fingernails. Once again, subtle but effective.

What this shows is that the best way to move our culture on issues like abortion and sexual morality is not to make a frontal assault with a blunt message you beat over the audience’s heads. Instead, make a film that follows the pattern I described earlier. “Wow, culturally unacceptable X is really, really bad. Wait a minute, culturally acceptable Y isn’t much different than culturally unacceptable X. Maybe Y is as bad as X.” That’s my advice on the production side.

On the consumer side, we should continue to buy tickets to good art and withhold our money and views from bad art, but it’s going to be a long tough road. That’s because we aren’t trying to correct a merely misguided company. If profit is all they wanted, that would get companies like Disney to turn their act around really quickly and make non-woke family friendly films and make a lot of money. There’s been a lot of examples of those recently. For these people, money isn’t the most important thing. It’s spreading their cause. Woke liberal, LGBT ideology is a religion to them and religious people have no problem wasting money if they think it’s at least spreading the message.

How many times have you heard a Christian say, “Well, that piece of art wasn’t financially successful, but if it converted at least a few people, it was worth it to get the message out there.” I think that’s the same motivation for companies like Disney that will tolerate box office bomb after bomb after bomb, because what matters most is the message, not the money to those working there. I don’t however think this is sustainable in the long term provided that Christians maintain their witness in their entertainment choices for the long haul. I hope this episode was helpful for you all and I definitely hope that you’ll check out Sound of Freedom in a theater near you. Thank you all so much and I hope you have a very blessed day.

If you liked today’s episode, become a premium subscriber at our Patreon page and get access to member only content. For more information, visit trenthornpodcast.com.

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Movie Review “Sound of Freedom”

Review of “sound of freedom”.

Although riveting, it is also sad and yet has an ending that is heartwarming. Alas, if all reports are even half-true, millions (and we mean many millions) of children are sex slaves to traffickers, and few of them are likely to have happy endings.

Those in the U.S. have watched an estimated 500,000 undocumented aliens stream across the Southern border each year and we have to wonder….how many of these are child traffickers? The same can be said for some European countries.

Well..back to the review of “Sound of Freedom”:

Casting was great…not just Jim Caviezel, as well as the supporting cast….including the children. Cinematography was also great. It was thought-provoking….you can’t help wonder how many children are exploited annually….and what finally becomes of them? Of course the movie doesn’t tell us that.

Note: the movie was made in 2018. It is arguably even truer today than then . The production company initially had a distribution deal with 20th Century Fox. However, after the Walt Disney Company acquired 20th Century Fox, Sound of Freedom was shelved. The film’s producer, Eduardo Verastegui, spent more than a year getting rights for the movie from Disney. Unfortunately, as soon as Disney released the rights for the film, the COVID pandemic hit and prevented the producer from getting it released.

The real-life Tim Ballard , the DHS agent played by Caviezel , has testified at a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee and shared footage of the sting operation portrayed in Sound of Freedom with the media. CBS applauded Tim Ballard and “Sound of Freedom” in 2014 for their efforts against child trafficking. Yet, today, the same mainstream media is dismissing the film based on Ballard’s work as a “paranoid” QAnon conspiracy. Why the sudden shift?

Spoiler Alert: Watch for it! Some actual footage of the sting operation plays during the final moments of the movie (or was it during the credits?) …but you’ll have to be looking for it…it flashes by quickly, with some of the faces blurred out in the images. By the time Tim left Colombia, he and the team had rescued over 120 victims and arrested more than a dozen traffickers,” reads text on the screen. I found that part fascinating.

The haters are coming out of the woodwork to bash the movie, of course . Some individuals on social media like to point out the clerical abuse scandal in the Catholic church (or other denominations), some want to say we are conspiracy theorists (isn’t it amazing how many “conspiracies” seem to come true once facts are exposed?) and others just don’t want to hear the truth.

The mere mention of God (“God’s children are not for sale”) is enough to rile up the “sophisticated” writers of such newspapers as The New York Times (which have long since lost any semblance of their motto “All the news that’s fit to Print”, much less any investigative reporting). Likewise, magazines such as Rolling Stone were happy to call it red meat for Q-Anon conspiracy theorists. Nowhere in the movie do we see anything to back that up, but of course no proof is ever offered in these critiques.

Most telling is the fact that, unwilling..or unable, to attack the movie itself, much of the criticism is that of the actors’ political and religious beliefs rather than the movie itself….something that never seems to concern them when reviewing other movies.

I would like to ask these critics: “ I’m just wonderin’… do you even remember when you first sold out?” ( a quote from the movie “Rainmaker”). When did you decide that your political message was more important than the truth?” Well, that would not go over well, I am sure.

To sum it up…..”The Sound of Freedom” is a great movie with a powerful message . Go see it….free tickets are available from Angel Studios supporters…or you can purchase tickets for someone else .

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‘Sound of Freedom’ makes history at the box office

July 18, 2023 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 0 Print

Denver, Colo., Jul 18, 2023 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

The film currently sits behind the new “Mission Impossible” at the No. 2 spot on the box office charts, beating out other expected summer hits, according to Box Office Mojo .

In over one week, the film increased its weekly gross revenue from $20 million to $27 million, totaling a gross revenue of $85.5 million since its opening.

Additionally, “Sound of Freedom” made box office history when its revenue increased by 37% from the previous week’s earnings.

In a June interview with CNA , Caviezel said that “Sound of Freedom“ “is the best film I’ve done since the ‘Passion of the Christ.’”

Verástegui shared in an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that he sees the movie’s success as a “miracle.” He explained why he believes this is the case.

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Washington D.C., Apr 9, 2019 / 04:28 pm (CNA).- With 2019 well underway, states across the country have seen an increase in bills related to abortion, as pro-life advocates seek more success and abortion rights backers fear Supreme Court decisions.

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Feature News | Saturday, July 08, 2023

Movie review: sound of freedom, ultimately uplifting, but at an emotional cost.

By OSV News - OSVNews

Photographer: None

Jim Caviezel stars in a scene from the movie “Sound of Freedom.” The OSV News classification of the theatrical version was A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association rating was PG-13 – parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. (OSV News photo/Angel Studios)

By John Mulderig

NEW YORK ( OSV News ) | "God's children are not for sale." Such is the motto of Tim Ballard, the indefatigably determined real-life crimefighter portrayed by Jim Caviezel in the fact-based drama "Sound of Freedom" (Angel Studios).

The story of Ballard's battle against the sexual enslavement of kids — a horrifying form of depravity that's disturbingly widespread — makes for a valuable and ultimately uplifting experience. But that payoff comes at an emotional cost.

Thus the mood lightens as Ballard first devises and then leads a clever sting operation. He's aided by Vampiro (Bill Camp), a colorful reformed gang member, and by Paul (Eduardo Verástegui), a wealthy businessman with an amateur's interest in detective work. Ballard is also consistently cheered on by his supportive wife, Katherine (Mira Sorvino).

Ballard's indefatigable determination — which not only drives him to imperil his career for altruistic reasons but subsequently to undertake a perilous rescue mission as well — is admirably heroic. And, as suggested by the quotation above, director and co-writer Alejandro Monteverde's script, penned with Rod Barr, is tinged with references to faith.

Yet Ballard's bravery is inextricably linked to the revolting evil he confronts. As a result, while moving and well-crafted, "Sound of Freedom" is also undeniably challenging. Parents may nonetheless feel that the movie's educational impact will be sufficient to make it acceptable fare for older adolescents.

The film contains stylized violence, mature themes, a couple of mild oaths and a smattering of crude and crass language. The OSV News classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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The Sound of Freedom

Jun 30, 2023 10:00:00 AM | by Amanda Lauer

Amanda Lauer reviews the new Jim Caviezel film, based on the true story of a man who endeavored to rescue hundreds of children from sex traffickers.

“God’s children are not for sale.” Those words uttered by Jim Caviezel in the movie The Sound of Freedom explain the motivation of the character he played, Tim Ballard, a former government agent turned vigilante who embarks on a dangerous mission to rescue hundreds of children from sex traffickers.

This movie, which, according to Caviezel, was five years in the making as there were so many roadblocks thrown in their way, is based on a true story. While I had reservations about watching this because of the subject matter, I knew it was important to learn more about this worldwide atrocity. My first exposure to the topic of human sex trafficking was in 2017 when I was assigned to write about this for the Green Bay Diocesan newspaper, The Compass. It’s a massive issue in our state because of highway corridors linking major cities in three states. Those interviews were eye-opening, to say the least.

Statistics quoted in the movie show that the problem has gotten exponentially worse since then. Human trafficking is a $150 billion-dollar-a-year business. There are more humans trapped in slavery today than any other time in history, including when slavery was legal. Millions of these slaves are children. The United States is one of the top destinations for human trafficking and is among the largest consumers of child sex.

Caviezel and nearly the entire cast—especially the child actors who portrayed the trafficked children—did outstanding work in their roles. Oscar-worthy in my opinion. This compelling and amazingly well-made movie focused on an 11-year-old girl and her 7-year-old brother, living in poverty in South America, whose father was deceived into turning them over to a woman who made a career of procuring children for this insidious industry. That showed one way that children are sourced, another way is kidnapping. There was actual black-and-white security camera footage in the film showing children being abducted from streets and sidewalks all over the world.

It brought tears to my eyes witnessing what these children go through. That being said, the film was done sensitively so the abuse was implied or off screen and the reactions of the children were muffled to make it less upsetting to watch. One disturbing note brought up in the film was that many cartels are moving from the drug industry to human trafficking because cocaine can be sold once but a child can be sold five or six times a day for sometimes as long as 10 years.

At the conclusion of the film Caviezel talks directly to the audience, encouraging everyone who watched The Sound of Freedom to spread the word about the movie so that millions of people will see it. Exposing this horror to the general population may help eradicate or at least lessen human trafficking. My resolve is to pray daily for all human beings in the bond of slavery, pray for the conversion of the traffickers and pedophiles who have created this market, and pray for the safety of those men and women putting their lives on the line to end the selling of human beings, particularly God’s precious children.

The Sound of Freedom opens in theaters nationwide beginning July 4, 2023. For showtimes near you and to order tickets, visit Angel.com/freedom .

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About the Author

Amanda Lauer

An avid reader and history buff since childhood, Amanda Lauer is the author of the award-winning Heaven Intended Civil War series and the time-travel novels, Anything But Groovy and Royal & Ancient. Amanda and her husband John have been married more than 40 years, and have four married children and eight precious grandchildren. Find out more about Amanda's life and work at AmandaLauer.com .

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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.

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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

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Sound of Freedom is an effective and suspenseful call to action against human trafficking, yet not free of issues in its depiction of the sensitive subject matter.

Sound of Freedom is a powerful film with strong performances and an important message.

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Christian thriller 'Sound of Freedom' faces criticism for stoking conspiracy theories

Shannon Bond

Sound of Freedom is a surprise box office hit. But the Christian thriller is also fueling controversy over conspiracy theories and its depiction of human trafficking.

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Catholic Sensibility
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'Sound of Freedom' with Jim Caviezel Based on a True Story
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Review: 'Sound of Freedom' (2023), starring Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino

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COMMENTS

Movie Review: 'Sound of Freedom'
As a result, while moving and well-crafted, "Sound of Freedom" is also undeniably challenging. Parents may nonetheless feel that the movie's educational impact will be sufficient to make it acceptable fare for older adolescents. The film contains stylized violence, mature themes, a couple of mild oaths and a smattering of crude and crass ...
Sound Of Freedom Catholic Movie Review
What Catholics Should Know About The Sound Of Freedom. Catholics will love the representation of big families, scripture quotes, the powerful conversion story, and Jim Caviezel's brown scapular making an appearance when he rescues over fifty children in the film. Parents should know that the content is geared toward adults as child sex ...
Sound of Freedom succeeds as both thriller and messenger
A solid review of a most important film, but at the end, Olszyk writes: "Sound of Freedom is an excellent and timely film but, unfortunately, it ends in strange fashion.
Movie review: 'Sound of Freedom'
Movie review: 'Sound of Freedom'. "God's children are not for sale.". Such is the motto of Tim Ballard, the indefatigably determined real-life crimefighter portrayed by Jim Caviezel in the fact-based drama "Sound of Freedom" (Angel Studios). The story of Ballard's battle against the sexual enslavement of kids — a horrifying ...
Sound of Freedom
Sound of Freedom, the new film written ... Together with Father Chip Hines, she is the co-host of Searchlight, a Catholic movie review show on Catholic TV. Sr. Hosea is the author of How to Watch Movies with Kids: A Values-Based Strategy, released by Pauline Books & Media. For the past 15 years, she has facilitated various film dialogues for ...
Jim Caviezel: 'Sound of Freedom' is 'best ...
Denver, Colo., Jun 15, 2023 / 11:26 am. Catholic audiences know actor Jim Caviezel for his iconic performances in movies such as "The Passion of the Christ" and "The Count of Monte Cristo."
"Too Ugly For Polite Company": A Film Review of "The Sound of Freedom"
The Sound of Freedom deserves our support, and not as a charity case either. Though I viewed the film through the eyes of a Christian, it is not an overtly or even remotely "religious" film. It is well shot, well acted, and is a compelling if not difficult watch; well worth a trip to the theaters to see. I hope this film goes mainstream and ...
Fr. Mike Schmitz Reviews "Sound of Freedom" Movie
The most horrific and devastating example of this is the sale of the weakest and most vulnerable in society, our children. Today, Fr. Mike shares his honest review of the film, "Sound of Freedom," currently in theaters, and offers a word of encouragement for how each of us can confront this terrible reality head-on and proactively do ...
'Sound of Freedom' Offers Opportunity to Highlight a Catholic Approach
The horrors of human trafficking are dramatized in the box-office hit movie Sound of Freedom about a real-life story of saving children trapped in sex trafficking. Two Catholic priests and an ...
Caviezel: 'Sound of Freedom' a 'weapon of mass instruction' to end
A new film starring Jim Caviezel aims to move millions to end the scourge of child trafficking. "Sound of Freedom," directed by Alejandro Monteverde, will debut in theaters July 4 with Caviezel starring as Tim Ballard, who began his career at the CIA and then spent more than a decade as a special agent for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security battling child exploitation.
'Sound of Freedom' Rings True
Jim Caviezel (l) and Javier Godino star in 'Sound of Freedom.' (photo: Sound of Freedom) A former colleague in EWTN's Theology Department is both an avid reader and an insightful film buff ...
Fr. Mike Schmitz Reviews "Sound of Freedom" Movie
Today, Fr. Mike shares his honest review of the film, "Sound of Freedom," currently in theaters, and offers a word of encouragement for how each of us can confront this terrible reality head-on and proactively do something about it. Support The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
"Sound of Freedom" (Angel Studios)
NEW YORK (OSV News) — "God's children are not for sale.". Such is the motto of Tim Ballard, the indefatigably determined real-life crimefighter portrayed by Jim Caviezel in the fact-based drama "Sound of Freedom" (Angel Studios). (The movie opens on Tuesday, July 4, and will be shown in theaters around the Diocese of Peoria ...
'Sound of Freedom' makes history at the box office
Denver, Colo., Jul 18, 2023 / 12:00 pm "Sound of Freedom," an anti-human-trafficking film made by Catholic filmmakers Eduardo Verástegui and Alejandro Monteverde and starring Catholic actor ...
Sound of Freedom
Jim Caviezel stars in a scene from the movie "Sound of Freedom." The OSV News classification of the theatrical version was A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association rating was PG-13 - parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. (OSV News photo/Angel Studios)
'Sound of Freedom' makes box-office history
Thursday, July 20, 2023. "Sound of Freedom," the film made by Catholic filmmakers Eduardo Verástegui and Alejandro Monteverde and starring Catholic actor Jim Caviezel, continues to top the box office charts, despite being dropped by Disney prior to its release. The film then beat out Disney's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at the ...
The Perverted Critics of Sound of Freedom
The media is also engaged in a blackout campaign against the Sound of Freedom. Rolling Stone Magazine gave three stars to Cuties, but there's no Rolling Stone review for Sound of Freedom in their TV section, movie section. Instead, there's just an op-ed bashing the film that was selected as a review for Rotten Tomatoes.
Movie Review "Sound of Freedom"
Review of "Sound of Freedom" Child trafficking doesn't quite fit the bill for most family entertainment; and quite frankly, I prefer movies that tend to be uplifting. So, I really wasn't motivated to watch this movie; however, since Jim Caviezel was the star, and Angel Studios produced it, I was anxious to check it out.
'Sound of Freedom' makes history at the box office
Photo from a scene in "Sound of Freedom," released in theaters on July 4, 2023. / Photo courtesy of Angel Studios Denver, Colo., Jul 18, 2023 / 12:00 pm (CNA). "Sound of Freedom," an anti ...
ADOM :: Movie review: Sound of Freedom
As a result, while moving and well-crafted, "Sound of Freedom" is also undeniably challenging. Parents may nonetheless feel that the movie's educational impact will be sufficient to make it acceptable fare for older adolescents. The film contains stylized violence, mature themes, a couple of mild oaths and a smattering of crude and crass ...
The Sound of Freedom
The Sound of Freedom. Amanda Lauer reviews the new Jim Caviezel film, based on the true story of a man who endeavored to rescue hundreds of children from sex traffickers. "God's children are not for sale.". Those words uttered by Jim Caviezel in the movie The Sound of Freedom explain the motivation of the character he played, Tim Ballard ...
Sound of Freedom movie review (2023)
Powered by JustWatch. "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.
Sound of Freedom
Rated: 2/5 • Oct 16, 2023. Rated: B • Oct 16, 2023. Sound of Freedom, based on the incredible true story, shines a light on even the darkest of places. After rescuing a young boy from ruthless ...
Christian thriller 'Sound of Freedom' faces criticism for stoking ...
The film "Sound Of Freedom" is this summer's surprise box office hit, raking in more than $85 million in ticket sales. As NPR's Shannon Bond reports, the movie is being criticized as a vehicle for ...

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A new film starring Jim Caviezel aims to move millions to end the scourge of child trafficking.

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Feature News | Saturday, July 08, 2023

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