Sound Of Freedom - This Summer’s Hit Docu-Drama
By Robert Thomas
The controversial independent film that could, Sound Of Freedom, has hit the silver screen with this year’s most surprising or rather is it shocking payout at the box office.
The controversy surrounding this movie has been yet another battle in the US culture wars that are spilling across Canada and further abroad.
The movie has ignited debate in a world so deeply entrenched and so extreme in its views it seems to be a major abyss with no bottom if you’re hoping to find some place to stand.
The film is based upon the life of Tim Ballard a former Department of Homeland Security officer tasked with tracking down child porn.
Ballard himself in his personal life has been controversial as his critics have attacked his efforts to stop child exploitation as let’s just say stretched beyond the realms of reality like a Hollywood script.
With that said Sound Of Freedom is a good movie - I’m not going to call it a Hollywood classic - but it has all of the elements to shock, convince and call for action as seen in a true to life documentary.
It’s not a film that’s going to be winning an Oscar - but that’s not what it is produced and designed to do.
Starring Jim Cavaziel (best known for portraying Jesus in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion Of The Christ) as Tim Ballard the film itself is a circle within a circle.
Circles which begin with innocence and hope that is broken and needs to be restored.
It’s a story not just about Ballard’s life but rather a story about dreams and innocence lost in unfathomable greed and avarice.
The innocence of a child taken, almost literally grabbed like a quick snack from a street vendor, and the quest to restore it.
Ballard along with a bevy of other like minded individuals are tasked with finding one girl who has been stolen by child sex traffickers.
It is a story about Rocio, played by Colombian actress Cristal Aparicio, who is spotted by a “talent scout” while performing in the market.
For Rocio the glitzy talent scout is the answer to hers and her family’s dreams to escape the poverty they live in. An escape to a better life.
To throw in more to this seeming miracle the talent scout sees Rocio’s younger brother Miguel (played by Lucas Avila) as a potential new star as well.
The deal is made. Both children are to be delivered for an audition to change their lives.
Predictably all is not what it seems and the children are lost to child sex slave traffickers leaving behind a father looking for answers.
Enter Ballard, a US Homeland Security officer, who is a world away catching people distributing child pornography.
He is a troubled man after years of watching and cataloging the vile evidence to put away the child pornographers but never once saving one of the child victims.
Victims who are invariably well outside of United States jurisdiction.
For Ballard it’s something that eats his soul. He needs that one child to save, to somehow find closure in a pit of sorrow, abuse and seeming madness his work truly is.
Ballard slips into the world he hates to become, or he hopes is, a man whose years of viewing volumes of vile child porn has turned him into one of those he hates.
He needs to convince a child predator of his sincerity to lure out a real child to save from the clutches of evil.
Invariably Ballard succeeds but the redemption of his soul is not there as he saves Miguel but not Rocio.
Ballard, who in real life is a Mormon, cannot find peace but is pushed forward after being reminded about his own family and what would he do.
I will leave you to find the answer if you chose to view this film.
And that is where this two hour film leads you.
It is not a cinematography wonder, the acting is not going to win an Academy Award but there may be a nomination for a supporting role.
But that is not what the film is all about.
It’s not designed to win awards it’s designed to give the audience a glimpse into a world from the victim’s perspective.
It’s a world not glamorous but a world rather of despair, abuse and fear.
A world unknown to the viewer.
The film drags through the details. It is the reality that could have easily have been punched up to draw audience emotion of hope but decides instead to stick to the sick reality.
This is not a subject to glamorize but is rather one that needs a light strongly shone on and if it is a measure of success exactly what the film does.
The subject matter is not for the squeamish.
As a cinematic production I give it a 7.2 out of 10.
As a film that is a call of arms to make and demand change - the real reason it was produced - Sound Of Freedom more than succeeds and independent film studio Angel Studios has not missed the mark.
Sound Of Freedom is now playing at the Galaxy Cinemas with various show times.