Thoughts on Sound of Freedom (2023)

Jim Caviezal's only facial expression in this movie

With there being some questions about a major studio picking up the film, the filmmmakers of THE SOUND OF FREEDOM decided to promote the film by saying it was a film that woke Hollywood was trying to silence. They then spun out weird conspiracy theories that made no sense such as during the period where the film was making it's mint (it's one of the most successful independent films ever) they claimed the films theaters were listing as sold out  but no one was in them. This they claimed was an attempt to prevent people from seeing it and their making money- except that it meant some one was paying for the seats since they were at the top of the box office week after week (They laughed all the way to the bank).

The film has Jim Caviezel playing Tim Ballard, a former US government agent, who goes after two kidnapped and trafficked children. The film is supposed to show the way that children are used by pedophiles across the globe.

I'm not going to get into the real world problems. I won't get into the problems with the films authenticity since there are too many factual question marks, from the problems with the tale in what is the real Ballard's story (apparently he talks a better game than he plays), or the fact that at least one of the people behind the film was arrested for the some of the things seen in the film, that make the film just as Hollywood as any other film.  Instead I'm simply going  to talk about the film on its own terms.

While the film has  a lot of problems with plotting and connection to reality the film has two issues that make the film truly not work for me and that it is incredibly dull and offensively sleazy. 

Told in a super serious style the film signals us about the seriousness of it all by having  Caviezel and the rest of the cast whisper. Everyone looks broken and sad and never change their facial expressions. There is no light anywhere. There are long moments where people stare and dirge like music plays. Worse the film is paced like the dirges and there is little sense of urgency except in the odd moment. I almost nodded off a couple of times because it was damn slow. I kept mumbling "get on with it" and wanting to reach for the remote. To be quite honest the film is really boring. Slow means serious and this film is painfully slow, hence very serious. It's not that the story itself isn't involving, rather the filmmakers failed to breath any life into what should be a compelling story. 

Or rather they breath life into the wrong part of the story, namely the child abuse portion of the film.

To be honest this is one of the sleaziest films I've ever seen. It reminded me of Paul Schrader's HARDCORE, the misguided expose on the porn industry which dwelt in sleaze in order to attract a "shocked" audience who didn't want to go into a porn theater. Here the filmmakers go into great detail to show the grooming of the kids. The put them all in the darkest dirtiest locations and then show us drooling pedophiles leaning into do horrible things to them. As much as I hate to say it, those sequences are the most alive ones in the film...which isn't surprising since I think a large part of the audience wanted  to go for a safe thrill. 

Yes, the pedo sequences will make your skin crawl, and while there should be something like them in the film,  the filmmakers unfortunately lean too heavily on them, pulling one out when the pacing of the rest of the film is dying.

I also need to say that I find the film to be disingenuous. It very much wants to take a stand but it also wants to make some cash and so went for the cheap thrills.(Which it should be said kind of put the child actors into the same sort of situations that the real bad guys would have.) Frankly if they had really wanted to dare to make a difference they should have tried to do something like CHILDREN OF THE DARK a 2008 film on the South East Asian child sex trade. It's a film that pulls no punches, has no Hollywood villains, and as such is nigh unwatchable since the sequences will make you want to throw acid in your eyes. There are no heroes in that film (no, really) and you walk out of it broken and hopeless because there is no Hollywood ending where we are lead to believe that there is only one good man willing to do anything.

While I don't hate the film as many people seem to, I don't really like it either. It's a boring film about an important subject made by filmmakers who have taken a holier than thou position in order to make a buck by creating a controversy to draw the rubes in. As I said at the top- they claimed no one was going to see the film even though it was at the top of the box office and adding more and more theaters. This is modern day exploitation hucksterism at it's finest. The drive in and grindhouse operators of the past are all jealous of the grand con.

I suspect that once the controversy dies down and the last penny has been stolen from audiences (I mean who is going to buy this to watch for pleasure?), this film will be seen for what it really is a super dull snooze fest.