"Sound Of Freedom" Movie - An Activist's Review

 

Hello all!

I just got finished watching the movie, "Sound Of Freedom," a thriller bio-drama about Tim Ballard, former Department of Homeland Security agent and founder of anti-trafficking organization Operation Underground Railroad. The movie as a whole was excellent, a very solid action movie anyone could enjoy. You don't need me to tell you that, just look at its Rotten Tomatoes 76% Critic Score and 100% Audience Score and the fact it was the highest-grossing movie over the 4th of July weekend, even ahead of Indiana Jones! However, I want to give my review of this movie from an activist's point-of-view: the Good, the Bad, the "Could Be Better," and the Caveats.

SPOILER ALERT: I won't give away the whole movie, but there are critical moments relevant to my review as an activist that I must include, which may be spoilers to the movie. If you want no spoilers, go see the movie and come back after you've seen it!

The Good:

Overall, the movie stayed very factual, very realistic, and very clean. By that, I mean one request Tim Ballard had for directors was that it not contain anything that could be arousing for a pedophile, and the director intentionally included at least one source of light in every scene (sunlight, lamp, candle, etc) to depict that there is always light in the darkness.

• The movie starts with a WOMAN as the first point of contact with the children. I am SOOO thankful this was included, as, despite common misconceptions, it is often a woman making the first contact. Women are generally perceived as easier to trust and less threatening to children, thus making them a more reliable first contact for children and their families.

• The children and father are lured in with promises of a better life by working in the entertainment industry as a singer and her brother. The father brought his children to an "audition." This was NOT an abduction off the street. The traffickers built trust, or "groomed," the whole family. Again, this is how most trafficking is done. Yes, there are abductions, but abductions only account for 4% of trafficking cases.

• Not only is the daughter trafficked, but also the son. It is true that the vast majority of sex trafficking victims are female (girls and adult women), but that does not mean men and boys are not also exploited.

The Bad:
As far as the film itself, I don't have much bad to say about it. The movie is pretty accurate and honestly represents how many trafficking cases happen. However, I have one criticism of the movie, and the looming headlines about the movie are where I'll mention "the bad."

• Some of the tactics used in the movie, namely trying to use children to catch traffickers, meeting with victims one-on-one, and essentially vigilante missions, are extremely dangerous and unethical. This should never be done in real life, and while I understand this is a movie, it needs to be said explicitly that this should never happen.

• Jim Caviezel, the award-winning actor playing Tim Ballard in the movie, has a history of sharing false QAnon conspiracies during promotion tours of the movie. While I do not feel any misleading statements or themes were made in the movie, it did give the movie itself an aura of "QAnon Adjacent" in news headlines, which is not helpful for viewership or legitimacy.

• Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) and Tim Ballard have been accused in recent years of falsifying or exaggerating reports of their operations and contributions. While I confess I have not seen the reports, I know trusted connections have discontinued work with the organization, and multiple extensive investigative reports have reached the same conclusion, which leads me to believe the accusations may carry some weight. Again, while this does not detract from the power or legitimacy of the themes of the film, itself, it does cast doubt on the facts of the "true story" it is based on and the work that has been done by the organization since then.

The "Could Be Better":
All of that said, there are some things I would like to mention that weren't as clearly depicted as I wish they had been.

• Near the beginning, there's a scene where it's said, "You know most of those kids [being trafficked] are outside the US border." However, at the end of the movie, they mention that the US is one of the top destination countries for trafficking. This is where the movie's dialogue was true to the story being told but false to the facts of trafficking as a whole. There has been trafficking reported in every zip code in the US; it is happening in our neighborhoods here in the US, NOT just "in some other country." 

• There's a pedophile arrested early on that, as an activist, I wish had been depicted more "normally." His style is that of the stereotypical "greasy hair, bowl-cut, mustache, antisocial" type. I wish he had been depicted as someone you might see in the office or on the train, as I felt this depiction of a pedophile was very stereotypical and not revealing of the fact there is no one "look"; they could be parents, business owners, etc. I felt like following along a stereotype was very simple and not as challenging to audiences' perceptions of what a pedophile looks like.

• The whole movie portrays Tim Ballard as this "hero" figure, while in the special message after the credits, Jim Caviezel emphasizes that the heroes of the movie are the brother and sister and their search for each other. I've said before that when someone is working to fight trafficking, they are the support. The hero of the story is the trafficking victim/survivor-warrior and their strength. I'm glad Caviezel makes that statement at the end, but it feels very contrary to the message sent throughout the film, itself.

• The film does a great job of breaking hearts and moving people to want to do more but fails to really provide any tangible ways people can take action other than to invite others to see the movie. Because of this, I've written a post listing several ways you can take action and make a tangible difference.

The Caveats:
Now that I've picked apart the accuracies and inaccuracies, I want to give the movie some benefit-of-the-doubt, as well as a call for anyone reading this.

• "Sound of Freedom" is a movie, first and foremost. I understand some artistic and creative freedom has been used to make a compelling story for moviegoers. I understand that not everything could be done as "to the letter" as I would normally like because that wouldn't necessarily make for a good movie.

• Most importantly, at the end of the movie in a special message, Caviezel says, "We all can play a part in bringing an end to trafficking." Please do NOT take this as a call to become a vigilante. Tim Ballard was a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security, which very few of us can say of ourselves. I've listed in several posts in the past that there are many other ways to get involved with fighting human trafficking, none of which require infiltrating sex trafficking rings and putting your life in danger.

Conclusion:
All-in-all, "Sound of Freedom" is an excellent drama-thriller, it stays mostly true to accurately depicting this type of trafficking situation and trafficking tactics, all while making it consumable and not excessively overwhelming for most audiences.