Sound of Freedom is a 2023 American action thriller film directed and co-written by Alejandro Monteverde. It stars Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino and Bill Camp.
It tells the story of Operation Underground Railroad founder Timothy Ballard (Caviezel), who sets off on a mission to rescue a pair of Honduran siblings from the underworld of sex trafficking. Ballard, disgusted by having to watch videos of children being sexually assaulted as part of his job with the Department of Homeland Security, and frustrated at only being able to arrest the pedophiles who viewed child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and not actually rescuing the children themselves, decides to take matters into his own hands to rescue one little boy named Miguel. He poses as a secret pedophile to gain the trust of a recent suspect, convincing the perp to have the boy shipped up for Ballard's "indulgence." Upon confirming that the child is on his way, Ballard arrests the pedo and then intercepts the boy and his trafficker at the San Ysidro-Mexico border crossing checkpoint.
While interviewing Miguel and treating him to dinner, Ballard learns the boy has a sister, Rocío, still trapped in sexual slavery. Miguel gives him a necklace that belonged to his sister and begs Ballard to find and save her. The necklace has the name Timoteo on it, referencing a Bible verse. Ballard vows that he will not stop until the girl is saved and Miguel's family is reunited. He goes on a personal mission to Colombia, where he works with Colombian police and a former drug cartel financier to track down the human trafficking ring behind the kidnappings.
The film was completed and ready for release in 2019, but studios repeatedly refused to distribute it, until Angel Studios agreed to release the film for a limited run in theaters. It was eventually released on July 4, 2023.
Previews: Trailer
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"Hear that? That's the sound of tropes":
- As the Good Book Says...: Ballard quotes Luke 17:2 to Ernst right before arresting him for child sex trafficking.
- Beauty Is Bad: Giselle, the first step in the human trafficking chain, is a former beauty queen.
- Big Bad: Giselle is the human trafficker who kidnaped Rocío and Miguel. Even though she's taken down just before the third act, Tim only infiltrates the FARC because of her actions.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Giselle poses as a kind and friendly talent scout looking to give children in relatively poor families a chance to find lucrative jobs as entertainers. She's really a remorseless trafficker who kidnaps children and sells them into sex slavery.
- Bittersweet Ending: Miguel and Rocío are returned home to their father and Giselle's trafficking operation is dismantled, but the two children along with the other young rescued victims will be scarred for life by the trauma they endured. Though the raid was successful, it was also, in the real Tim Ballard's words, "a drop in the bucket" in the global fight against human trafficking.
- Blatant Lies: As the raid team descends upon the island to rescue the kids, Giselle fruitlessly insists that she's a victim too as she's hauled away in handcuffs.
- Book Ends: The movie begins with the camera zooming in on the window to Rocío's bedroom as she's singing and beating a makeshift drum. It ends with the camera zooming away from that same window while she sings playing on a real drum gifted to her by her father.
- Boomerang Bigot: An Afro-Latina woman gives a racist nickname to the only Afro-Latino child in the group of children she helps kidnap.
- Break the Cutie: Rocío starts the movie a cheerful girl who loves to sing and play her drum, and she's quite good. Her little brother is shy, but also generally very happy. By the end of the movie, the two children are mere shells of their former selves. However, they do still have some vestige of hope that allows them to start slipping back into their old lives.
- The Chessmaster: Tim. He's exceptionally good at manipulating circumstances and people in accordance with his plans.
- Determinator: Tim Ballard does not ever stop to consider ending his quest to save Rocío. If he has to resign from his job in Homeland Security or go alone into hostile rebel territory to find her, then he does it without hesitation.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Giselle. Tim spends nearly half the movie concocting a complicated scheme just to meet her, but when he finally has her arrested on the island raid, he finds out she doesn't have Rocío and has to chase another lead from one of Giselle's cronies to find her.
- The Dreaded: The SARC rebels holding Rocío hostage are dangerous to the point where Jorge is adamant about abandoning her rescue. It takes a clever plan from Vampiro in disguising as doctors to carry on the mission.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Vampiro admits he was once deep into crime and addiction. However, one thing he would never do was exploit a child. Finding out that the prostitute he rented was a minor fueled his Heel–Face Turn.
- Subverted with Ernst Oshinsky. He's a massive purveyor of CSAM content, but he tells Ballard that he nevers acts on his fantasies. However, his ability to buy Ballard a weekend with young Miguel implies he most definitely does.
- Final Boss: The Scorpion, a member of the FARC, and Rocío's buyer. Tim's efforts to save her from him is the bulk of the third act.
- Guile Hero: Tim Ballard is very good at weaving people into doing what he wants and setting up complicated plans that lead to him arresting child traffickers and saving their victims. He starts by pretending to be a closeted pedophile himself and playing to the interests of one who was just arrested so that he can "buy" the services of a boy he intends to rescue, and eventually moves on to a massive sting operation that involves getting multiple traffickers, clients, and 54 children onto a single island.
- Heel–Face Turn: Vampiro, a former gambling addict and drug trafficker, had one of these upon learning that the prostitute he rented, whom he thought was 25, was actually 14.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Tim Ballard is blond and is the noble, fearless hero who genuinely loves children.
- Hate Sink: Any of the pedophiles and traffickers qualify (as they are disgusting pieces of work who exploit children for their own selfish desires), but special mention goes to Giselle (the human trafficker posing as a talent agent), Earl Buchanan (Miguel's buyer exploiting him for CSAM), "The Scorpion" (Rocío's buyer who is arguably the vilest of Giselle's customers), and the drunk white man who sexually abuses Rocío behind the curtains.
- Hope Spot: The island raid is successful, resulting in the liberation of 54 children and the arrest of several traffickers. For a moment, Ballard believes they've succeeded at freeing Rocío. But then he learns Rocío was not among the children. She was sold to a man in the FARC before the island raid was planned.
- Human Traffickers: The primary antagonists of the film are those who specifically specialize in trafficking children for sexual purposes.
- Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: To be expected from a movie where children are kidnapped and sold into sex slavery.
- Living MacGuffin: Rocío is the driving force behind the plot. Ballard won't rest until he finds and rescues her.
- Missing Mom: Rocío and Miguel's papá is a single father, and we never learn what happened to their mother.
- Model Scam: How Giselle's whole operation works. She poses as an agent scouting for talent, which she finds in children, and then tricks them into joining her company which is really a front for human trafficking.
- The Mole: It's probably the only way Tim Ballard (and company) can gather information, infiltrate the traffickers' operations, and save the kids.
- Ballard pretends to be a fellow pedophile so that he can gain information from Ernst Oshinsky regarding Miguel. As soon as the former has enough, he has the latter arrested.
- Ballard, Vampiro, Jorge, and Paul infiltrate Giselle's operations as some of her fellow "associates." In the process, they manage to get the Colombian police to assist them at the right timing.
- Ballard and Vampiro disguise themselves as doctors to infiltrate the SARC and rescue Rocío. Only Ballard entered deeper into the hideout however.
- Neck Snap: Tim kills the Scorpion this way. Notably a more realistic take on it than is standard, as he has to get him in a proper lock to do so and it clearly take a lot of effort.
- Non-Action Big Bad: While Giselle is the one in charge of the trafficking operation, she mostly sticks to selling the kids while her minions are the ones handling and delivering them to the buyers. Despite all the effort Tim goes through just to set up a meeting with her, she puts up no resistance whatsoever when the raid goes down, and doesn't even try to flee. Her buyer, Scorpion, on the other hand, puts up much more of a fight.
- Number Two: Vampiro is Tim's biggest and staunchest supporter in bringing the child traffickers down and saving their victims. Being a native who has more knowledge of the lay of the land and its criminal underbelly, his help proves indispensable to the cause.
- Oh, Crap!: Miguel and Rocío's father's reaction upon returning to pick them up and finding the room where he left them, as well as the building, completely deserted and realizing that his children have been kidnapped.
- Rape Discretion Shot: A scene shows a child cowering on a bed as a client comes in. The scene cuts to the exterior, where we see the client drawing the curtains.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: While Vampiro isn't entirely a comical character, his sense of humor and coaching of Ballard on how to get into Giselle's good graces make up most of the movie's levity. So when our heroes have to head into FARC territory during the climax to rescue Rocio, Vampiro isn't allowed to go along, forcing Tim to continue alone.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Ernst Oshinsky, the pedophile arrested near the beginning of the movie, ultimately and inadvertently sets Ballard off on his mission when he secured Miguel for him. This gives Ballard the opportunity to rescue Miguel and then embark on the more dangerous task of tracking down the boy's sister and rescuing her alongside any other children he can.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Giselle coos over how pretty Rocio is and delightfully refers to Miguel as a "cutie". When it's revealed that she's part of a human trafficking network, it becomes chillingly clear that their beauty is exactly why she targeted them.
- Starter Villain: Ernst Oshinsky is the first on-screen pedophile arrested by Tim Ballard, which leads the latter into also arresting Earl Buchanan, Miguel's buyer. What follows afterwards is a campaign going after arresting Giselle and rescuing Rocío from the SARC.
- Title Drop: Vampiro does this after the island raid succeeds and the children start singing joyfully.Vampiro: You hear that? That's the sound of freedom.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Many of the actions Ballard takes to rescue children never occurred. There was no brother sister pair rescued by Ballard, he at no point entered FARC territory, and he never killed a FARC leader. FARC itself has never been proven to engage in child sex trafficking (or any other form of human trafficking). The most accurate aspect of the film is the island raid, which involved a mix of adult and child trafficking victims.
- Viewers Like You: Sound of Freedom was crowd funded and released by Angel Studios, which focuses on crowd funding films and streaming shows for Christian/conservative audiences. Midway through the credits, Jim Caviezel addresses the audience to thank them for their financial contributions and encourage them to pay it forward by purchasing a ticket online to be donated to a viewer who can't otherwise afford to see the movie.
- Villainous BSoD: Vampiro when he realized (as he recounts to Tim) that the prostitute he'd just had sex with was only 14 instead of in her mid-twenties as he'd first believed. Cue his Heel Realization and very nearly shooting himself.
- Would Hurt a Child: The main villains are all child traffickers, so this comes with the territory.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: After the island raid in which they save 54 children, Tim finds out Rocío was sold to a FARC commander.
