“Based on a true story,” are the five most inaccurate words in Hollywood, but rarely are they all that malicious.
Remember the Titans was a largely fictional work tagged with “based on a true story”, but to what end? Promoting the idea that team sports can be a uniting force? It’s unrealistically simplistic, but it’s not wrong.
Bohemian Rhapsody completely mangled the Queen timeline on its way to being one of the worst music biopics in recent memory.
But Sound of Freedom, a new film from Angel Studios, feels different for an array of reasons.
What is Sound of Freedom?
Star Jim Caviezel plays Tim Ballard, a Special Agent at the Department of Homeland Security assigned to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. He is struck by one case, the abduction of a brother and sister, leading him to quit his formal job and go vigilante to save the siblings. It’s a simple plot.
But how much of it is true? Ballard himself says, “Some things are definitely overreported.”
For example, the entire climax, in which Ballard journeys down river, like Captain Willard, to kill the bad guy and rescue the girl, is a cinematic invention. Ballard has never even claimed that this event happened.
It’s an obvious choice, though, in the name of cinematic sensationalism. Earlier in the film, Ballard saves 54 children and brings down five or six child traffickers. The problem? There’s no violence.
It’s a predictable and disheartening reality of film, or at least mainstream film (which this is attempting to be). The most interesting section of the film is the undercover work, in which Ballard and his cohorts set up a lavish party on a private island, intending to lure the traffickers into their trap. Not a single shot fired or punch thrown, and half a hundred kids are saved.
But no, that can’t be the climax. It has to be the lone wolf, sent into the jungle to save one girl, with just a gun and his balls.
It’s this sensationalist attitude that seeps into every aspect of the film, and ultimately has drawn the ire of experts on the issue of child trafficking.
Pay it Forward
We’ve seen actors promote their films and encourage word-of-mouth, but this is where Sound of Freedom has done things differently. Angel Studios introduced a “pay it forward” program, in which supporters can buy tickets for others.
This is how I saw the film. You simply get on the Angel Studios website and request tickets, and within a few hours a code is emailed to you. This program inflated the film’s box office, helping it reach a level that surpassed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
In the post-credits video, Caviezel addresses the audience and encourages them to participate in the program, stressing his desire to make Sound of Freedom the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of our generation.
(At another point in the film, a statistic is superimposed on-screen, stating that more people are in captivity now than “when slavery was legal.” Between these references, Ballard’s “Operation Underground Railroad”, and the 2016 documentary about him entitled The Abolitionists, the white desperation to co-opt black trauma is fully on display.)
But why has this program been so successful? Why is this bland riff on Taken garnering so much conversation and making so many waves?
Why, God, why is everyone and their mother telling you this film is so damn important?
The answer is actually far more bipartisan than you’d think.
IT’S BECAUSE NONE OF US HAVE ANY ACTUAL POWER
People are so damn passionate about Sound of Freedom for the same reason they’re passionate about cancel culture.
Your right-wing uncle NEEDS you to see Sound of Freedom for the same reason your transgender cousin NEEDS you to know just how much she hates JK Rowling’s guts: It’s the only bit of power they have in our society.
We all know the numbers, but they’re worth repeating:
As of Q4 2021, the top 1% of households in the United States held 32.3% of the country’s wealth. The bottom 50% of households held just 2.6% of wealth.
And it’s no secret that money is power. That top 1% is avoiding legal repercussions, skirting taxes, buying football teams, and doing every other thing that equates to real power in this country.
The peons are left to fight the other peons about authors and comedians and football team names.
The peons are left to buy movie tickets for other peons.
And they buy those movie tickets, lining the pockets of far wealthier people, with the idea that they’re doing something about child abuse.
Meanwhile, the wealthy hang out with child abusers.
And they get off scot-free. Mostly.
I read plenty of snarky reviews about Sound of Freedom, and many of them weren’t wrong. I was disheartened, however, at how aggressively partisan and condescending every review I’ve read has been.
I don’t think everyone who finds this film important is an idiot. I’m not interested in talking down to everyone who felt like they were doing something good when they spread the word about it.
That is what we do with art we find valuable. I did not find Sound of Freedom valuable, and I in fact found it to be the opposite.
But God knows, the next time I see a film that I do see value in, I will be screaming it from the rooftops. I’ll tell you all how important it is and I’ll tell you, “you’ve got to buy tickets so we get more films like this.”
The Verdict?
From a filmmaking standpoint, this is simply not a good film.
The dialogue was uninteresting throughout, and there were chunks of it in which the writer was outright jumping through the screen and jamming his screenplay in your face.
Caviezel’s performance was especially weak, leaving me wondering if he was ever a great actor in the first place. He’s a charisma vacuum here, delivering those aforementioned chunks of dialogue in the same robotic tone you hear in this interview with Jordan Peterson.
The only real standouts were the performances by the children, namely Cristal Aparicio in the role of Rocio, the young girl Ballard is on a mission to save.
There’s nothing else that is spectacular about Sound of Freedom. Everything, from the cinematography to the script to the soundtrack, is boilerplate. The sound editing was even downright poor, with some of the music sounding like it was ripped from Limewire.
Narratively, it’s not much different than a film like Taken, except in that this purports to be a true story.
It is that aspect of the film that hammers the nail into its coffin. It purports to be a true story as its real-life subject works on flimsy tips from psychics and films raids without concern for victim privacy, and its star spreads QAnon conspiracy theories.
Even if the intentions of all involved from Caviezel to Ballard are good, and not the desire to line their pockets and look like heroes, this film and the media circus surrounding it are not good for victims of child trafficking.
At most, a bit of awareness has been raised, while the coffers at Angel Studios overflow.
Sound of Freedom is an unabashed exploitation of a serious issue that doesn’t even have the decency to admit that it’s a fabrication. Taken was also an unabashed exploitation of a serious issue, but Liam Neeson never had the gall to tell you that you have to buy tickets for you and your whole neighborhood, lest the pedophiles come at night and harvest your children’s adrenochrome.
I cannot recommend Sound of Freedom.