The film Sound of Freedom finally hit cinemas in the US on July 4th. The Day of Independence may turn out to be just that, for millions of enslaved children around the world. And the controversial new drama, eight years in the making, has become a surprise hit at the box office.
However, the film, starring The Passion of the Christ star Jim Caviezel, has had a long and torturous journey to its final release.
It comes from director and co-writer Alejandro Monteverde and was shot in 2018, with its release delayed due to Covid. Disney held the rights to the film, but after continued delays, the film finally took a more radical route, by-passing Hollywood, and came to fruition after distributor Angel Studios took the film’s reins. The film company had already scored another massive surprise success with its series The Chosen, an intimate and insightful portrayal of the disciples of Jesus, launched as a crowd-funder.
Sound of Freedom took a similar route, also crowd-funded. In just two weeks – endorsed by Caviezel’s Passion of the Christ director Mel Gibson – it succeeded in amassing the studios’ goal of $5m (£3.8m), which was donated by 7,000 people. Clearly, it’s attracted a lot of controversy, with the subject matter very much in the news, increasingly every day. But despite the controversy, Sound of Freedom is also attracting a large audience – and has grossed $41.7m (£32.3m) from a budget of just $14.5m (£11.2m).
The film is purported to be based on real events, with Caviezel’s character embarking on a mission to rescue children from sex traffickers in Colombia. The lead role is inspired by anti-human trafficking activist Tim Ballard. Ballard served as a Special Agent Undercover Operator for U.S. Department of Homeland Security for 11+ years, before being compelled to take up the precarious role of paedophile hunter. He is the founder and former CEO of Operation Underground Railroad, a US based anti-sex trafficking non-profit operation.
For me, the film surpassed all my expectation, having followed it’s progress since it’s inception. Reading reviews, I had qualms that the film would shift focus to the jungles of Columbia, a possibly racist slant indicating this was the domain of ruthless, gun-toting dark-skinned cartels, when the main repicients of the child sex market are the millionaires and billionaires in some of the most luxurious places on earth. But, to watch this film is to observe a work of art so skillful, so subtly created as to make the viewer read between the lines, suggestive of the whole horrific process and multi-billion dollar industry, whilst using stereotypical characters as the traffickers. It also somewhat grated that the main procurer of the children, as a casting coach at a modelling agency, is a black woman, when the most famous woman we know of in this role, Ghislaine Maxwell, is white, immensely rich, privileged, and Oxbridge.
However, perhaps that’s for another future film. The most powerful scene, for me, was when children were being bundled into a boat and taken to a luxury island, to satiate the lusts of the cruel and vile moneyed men awaiting them. Nobody could watch this scene without making a direct connection to Jeffrey Epstein’s island, and it is brilliantly done.
Another really powerful moment is when Cavaziel says, through smiling, gritted teeth: “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” An obvious biblical quote, but lost on the clueless trafficker he is about to steer into a sting. It may prove to be as menacing as any moment in film history.
The film also skilfully manages to convey the sordid horror of child sex abuse without actually showing anything graphic. The very shadowed, implied, subtle treatment is somehow far more disturbing. The 1970s film Get Carter, on the same subject, achieved a similarly shocking, revelatory effect. It may be the tip of the iceberg in uncovering the true scale of this world-wide epidemic, but it’s made a truly heroic start. Jim Cavaziel’s performance is so electrically focused and emotionally charged throughout, it would take a non-human heart not be extremely moved.
On the predictable, concerted attacks on the film by the mainstream media, concerning conspiracy theories, Tim Ballard told the New York Times “Some of these theories have allowed people to open their eyes, so now it’s our job to flood the space with real information so the facts can be shared.”
Exactly. This film is a game changer. Everyone should watch this film, as part of their moral education as to how this world is currently being run, especially if you’ve somehow not been paying attention and are new to this. And, any controversies aside, or accusations as to the validity of the main story, this will be the real prescient success of the film. It chimes with the current scandals predictably besieging the BBC, with more in the pipeline, who have chosen to ignore the child sex scandals involving some of its biggest names over the last 60 years. Lessons, clearly, have not been learned, and arrogance still reigns. Using an excuse of mental illness and a caring approach to silence the latest exposure totally overlooks the huge damage and mental illness caused by this scourge on a world scale. If you genuinely care about mental health, watch this film.
It exposes the seedy underbelly of the international, multi-million dollar child trafficking operation, but its only the foundations of what is to be revealed. It has to stop. The future will be unthinkable if we don’t stop the sexualisation of children, stealing their childhoods, and increasingly turning them into corporate commodities.
Films seem to have lost their way in making people think critically, as empathetic, sentient beings, with the flood of re-makes and Marvel comics in Hollywood distracting us. This film drags us back into the zone of being human, caring and responsible, and the entire excellent cast and crew should take an almighty bow for the courage and persistance they’ve shown. Whatever way you look at it, this is a choice beween good and evil.
Jim Caviezel played Jesus to great effect in another film. And this message is even more powerful: he’s back.
Claire Palmer
For the children
watch the bootleg here