2023-09-14 11:33:41
The thriller “Sound of Freedom”, one of the highest-grossing and scandalous releases of the year, was released in Russia. Especially for “Disgusting Men,” Dmitry Sokolov not only prepared a review of the film, but also talked regarding how this low-budget project, which had been lying on the shelf for many years, suddenly became an American box office sensation, and at the same time fueled interest in satanic conspiracy theories, the QAnon movement and the topic international pedophile sect centered in the USA.
During another raid once morest pedophiles selling children, a special agent of the migration police Tim Ballard frees an eight-year-old boy, Miguel, who asks him to find his sister. Realizing that the rescued boy was only part of a larger supply in the child slave trade market, Ballard goes to Colombia, where, in cooperation with local police, he organizes a risky operation, infiltrating an international pedophile syndicate. It soon becomes clear that the traces of the kidnapped girl lead from the port city of Cartagena to the impassable jungle, where rebels using child labor rule.
“Sound of Freedom” is perhaps the main sleeper hit of this year. The film, made for a modest $14 million, without a string of A-list stars in the roles and without the support of any major studio, was released in the summer – at the height of the blockbuster season – and hit the box office like crazy. To date, its grosses amount to something like $200 million, almost all mainstream media are writing regarding “The Sound of Freedom,” social networks are filled with rave reviews from viewers (and much more restrained reviews from critics), and Donald Trump arranged a special screening of the film in his golf course. club To understand the reasons for such a powerful wave of hype, we must first talk regarding the real Tim Ballard – the man whose professional experience is behind the plot of “The Sound of Freedom.”
Tim Ballard worked for many years in the US Department of Homeland Security, and in 2013 he founded the non-profit organization Operation Underground Railway (OUR), designed to fight the child slave trade. Over ten years, Ballard’s team conducted numerous operations both in the United States and abroad, identifying and protecting hundreds of children from pedophiles. One of the most famous took place in the mid-2010s in Colombia, where OUR organized a party for pedophiles in a luxurious mansion right in the center of Cartagena, and when the guests arrived, the local police successfully arrested everyone. In his free time from catching perverts, Ballard (a committed Mormon and father of nine children) writes very original books on historical topics – in one of them, for example, he argued that Abraham Lincoln was inspired by the Book of Mormon during his presidency and the emancipation of slaves.
But even more colorful are Ballard’s fans and friends, including many conservatives and conspiracy theorists. A special place among them is occupied by supporters of the QAnon movement, convinced that a secret sect of pedophiles is thriving among the American elite, who sacrifice children en masse at their meetings. When Sound of Freedom failed to find a distributor in the late 2010s, it seems that many of those who supported the film’s development through crowdfunding decided that the delays in release were the machinations of those same pedophiles who did not want the truth regarding their gatherings leaked to the people. And although Ballard himself has not publicly linked the plot of “Sound of Freedom” to the QAnon mythology, from time to time he has made very extravagant statements reminiscent of the wildest theories surrounding the “pedophile conspiracy.” For example, during one interview, Ballard stated that his team raided “baby factories” in West Africa where minors were sold for organs for satanic rituals. While similar practices do occur in African countries, a significant number of QAnon supporters take Ballard’s words as evidence that an elite secret society of pedophiles has long existed internationally, purchasing children around the world for sex slavery. According to the QAnon mythology, important figures in this sect include, for example, Tom Hanks (whom the authorities secretly executed several years ago for molesting children), Bill Gates and Pope Francis I along with the Dalai Lama, and the only hope for normal people was Donald Trump. challenging the dominance of perverts in American politics. But if Ballard and the film’s producers persistently deny that the plot of “The Sound of Freedom” is connected with any conspiracy theories, then Jim Caviezel, the main star of the film, who played Ballard himself, says something completely different. The actor has repeatedly attended meetings of the QAnon movement, where he talked regarding how ardeonochrome, a particularly powerful psychoactive drug highly valued on the black market, is extracted from the blood of children kidnapped for pedophiles.
Considering all this context, it is not surprising that “Sound of Freedom” was surrounded by a trail of scandals from its first day at the box office. Another surprising thing is that the film, when tested, turned out to be not at all a collection of dense conspiracy myths, but a completely conventional thriller with a clear detective line, convincing drama and good acting. And its phenomenal success at the box office is associated not only with promotion in a conservative environment, but also with the fact that the story shown in the film will find a response in the hearts of many parents, especially from poor and disadvantaged families. Market analysts have already noticed, that more than half of the audience were people over 45 years of age: apparently, the creators of “Sound of Freedom” managed to identify a huge and previously unreached segment of the audience. The main artistic merit of the film is the carefully constructed atmosphere of the investigation, depicting in detail the process of kidnapping children and their subsequent rescue.
Despite the fact that the pace of events here is quite slow, the script never marks time, but gradually reveals more and more links in the chain leading from the rescued Miguel to his sister through Honduras, the USA, Mexico, and finally Colombia, where the main thing takes place film action. Director Alejandro Monteverde skillfully plays with the Latin American setting, depicting a vibrant but wild world on the border of civilization, where carefree fun and mortal danger are tightly intertwined. As the investigation progresses, the stakes in Ballard’s game increase, and the focus of the plot shifts from drama to thriller. If in the first third of the film we observe Tim in the familiar environment of a police office, then by the middle of the film he penetrates into a closed community of pedophiles and makes friends with shady types like the dark joker Vampiro (an excellent role by Bill Camp, a veteran of supporting roles) or the swindler Calacas (the famous Mexican actor Gustavo Sanchez Parra), to whose lips a nasty grin was firmly stuck. And in the end, Ballard will have to make his way into rebel territory at his own risk, where every step might cost him his life.
But the emphasis in The Sound of Freedom is still less on suspense and more on characters and detective work. As for the latter, everything is fine with this in “The Sound of Freedom”: the heroes are constantly busy with business, and from time to time the plot switches to the story of a kidnapped girl, very realistically depicting the process of child abduction. By the way, all this looks very everyday (and therefore creepy) – boys and girls are invited to audition for singers or children’s clothing models, so the parents bring everyone themselves. Well, then – containers filled with children, the ship arrives at the port, and now the next buyer, rubbing his hands, chooses the right child. In this sense, “The Sound of Freedom” explores in some detail a topic that is extremely rare for mainstream cinema, and does so delicately, without excessive moralizing or fear-mongering.
Unfortunately, this delicacy in presenting very serious and heavy subject matter is sometimes undermined by Caviezel’s performance. While he is obviously trying to give a great performance, it is equally clear that his acting skills are not quite sufficient for such a complex role. The catch is that Caviezel has to play essentially two characters: not only the ideal father and the hard-line cop, but also an undercover pedophile surrounded by people he hates. While Caviezel plays the first image without any problems, he is much worse at pretending to be a complete sick bastard. In addition, Caviezel clearly abuses stingy male tears, which is why some of the most poignant scenes of the film look like a cheap attempt to squeeze out a tear from the audience. Another noticeable flaw in the film is the extremely sketchy portrayal of Ballard’s wife (Mira Sorvino has an offensively small role), which might be removed from the film without harming the plot. Considering that the real Tim Ballard has repeatedly said that it was his wife who inspired him to fight the child slave trade, this is a rather strange script decision.
And yet, despite these shortcomings, “Sound of Freedom” looks with unflagging interest. Even Ballard’s emphasized religiosity in the film, which irritates many critics, is not just a biographical fact, but an organic part of the message conveyed by the film. Numerous dialogues regarding God and quotations from the Bible are more than appropriate here, if only because the talk in “The Sound of Freedom” is regarding people who regularly and voluntarily risk their lives to save children, and in a thoroughly criminal environment – such work requires motivation that goes far beyond purely monetary gain or considerations of prestige. In this sense, The Sound of Freedom is a distinctly Christian film, regardless of Ballard’s personality and the criticism that surrounds him. Not only is it a consistent effort to raise awareness of the very real problem of child trafficking, but it is also a story regarding how doing good requires not just financial or media resources, but personal determination and a clear understanding of right and wrong.
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