Sound of Freedom (****) rings a clarion call

Director Alejandro Monteverde
Screenplay Rod Barr, Alejandro Monteverde
Starring Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino, Bill Camp, José Zúñiga

Tonight, on a Sunday evening, nearly two weeks from the release of the Angel Studios film The Sound of Freedom, I attended the film for the first time. The screening I attended was 90 percent full, with several families in attendance. Even babies. No one wants to miss out on a phenomenon that is swirling in the midst of a doldrums of Hollywood blockbuster season. As the Actors have joined the writers in striking against the major studios, there could not be a better time for purpose driven entertainment to take hold.

The film is the story of Special Agent Tim Ballard (Caviezel) working to fight child pornography for Homeland Security Investigations. He stumbles across one of two children kidnapped from Roberto (Zúñiga). After reuniting the father with his child, he is driven to pursue the other, working backward through clues that lead him to former bad guy Vampiro (Camp) who now works to save children from sex trafficking.

Caviezel and Camp are good actors, and with the right material they can do incredible work. Caviezel is given the somewhat easier task of being a constant, noble pursuer. Camp is relegated to looking sleazy, sweaty and devilish with a constantly burning cigar stub smoking from his mouth of suspiciously white teeth.

Their effort to rescue Roberto’s second child takes two turns. The first of which, there is evidence that truly happened while the second takes more of a flight of fancy. If they would have ended with their first success, it would have been a little too short a film, one must infer. The last 40 minutes of the film plays less realistically than the rest, just for the purpose of giving Ballard’s character the satisfying hero’s journey.

One cannot, however, underestimate the power of the overall story being told. Monteverde is a good director who has experienced more than his fair share of horror in life, given his father and brother were murdered by traffickers in Veracruz, Mexico in 2015. He gives sensitive and painful portrayals of the evils done to innocent by those who hold little value to life.

Before the credits roll, we see Ballard, his family, and footage from one of the raids. This viewer found many moments through the film incredibly tough to watch, even when it bordered towards on the nose storytelling. There is no doubt, aside from the movie spectacle of certain aspects of The Sound of Freedom, many uncomfortable truths about the hell of child slavery are being poured into the consciousness of more average Americans than ever before. Knowledge is power. Let’s hope it helps lead to something.

The epilogue of The Sound of Freedom states that there is more slavery now than at any time in the history of mankind. The portrayal that we are granted by Monteverde and his writing partner Barr give those in bondage a light. Let’s hope it’s a light that never goes out.

(**** out of *****)