Film Review: SOUND OF FREEDOM (2022): A Powerful Plea to Take Action is Led by a Terrific Turn by Jim Caviezel

Sound of Freedom Review

Sound of Freedom (2022) Film Review, a movie directed by Alejandro Monteverde, written by Rod Barr and Alejandro Monteverde and starring Jim Caviezel, Bill Camp, Mira Sorvino, Jose Zuniga, Kurt Fuller, Eduardo Verastegui, Gerardo Taracena, Scott Haze, Alanna De La Rossa, Gary Basaraba, Yessica Borroto Perryman, Manny Perez, Javier Godino, James Quattrochi, Gustavo Sanchez Parra, Ariel Sierra and Eduardo Gomez Monteverde.

Sound of Freedom is an action movie based on true events with a very important message at its core that makes it stand out from your typical action thriller. Jim Caviezel stars as one-time government agent Tim Ballard who, alongside a small but dedicated group of people, went to extreme measures to rescue a young girl who was kidnapped and sold into slavery through trafficking. Directed by Alejandro Monteverde, this film presents the premise without the need for any sugarcoating. It is an intense picture that is an unflinching experience and will be hard to watch for many moviegoers. But, this story is nevertheless a compelling one which makes the film work as a tense dramatization of factual events.

The film opens with a father being told by a woman that his young son and daughter have what it takes to become child models. The young daughter is led to believe she will have a bright future if she does modeling. Her dad drops her and her brother off where there are other children present who seem to share similar dreams. The woman tells the dad to come back to pick his kids up later on in the evening. When he comes back, all the kids are long gone and have been taken away. Monteverde doesn’t spare details of showing the ways the children are exploited for their looks and the movie goes a bit further than necessary to imply horrifying things that are occurring which are heartbreaking to behold in regards to what happens to these kids.

When Tim starts to con a suspicious pervert accused of wrong doings, he digs deep to uncover a child trafficking ring. He finds the 8-year old boy who the father dropped off at the beginning of the movie but not the boy’s sister. The male child was being sold as “Teddy Bear” to sickos and, luckily, Tim and his law enforcement officials managed to rescue the boy. It’s the child’s sister (named Lucia), now, who Tim seeks to find and he will go undercover to do so, infiltrating the sex trafficking business with the help of a one-time perv who has reformed himself named Vampiro (Bill Camp). Vampiro has been taking and rescuing children on his own and teams up with Tim to try to save as many children as possible, including, of course, Lucia.

This film is very well made from a technical standpoint. There are riveting scenes that will send chills down one’s spine as graphic details are revealed which will sadden the viewer when realizing that these scenarios are fact based. Caviezel is the glue that holds it all together with a heartfelt and strong performance that ranks up there with the best of the actor’s work. Bill Camp more than holds his own beside him in a showy role that occasionally adds some unsolicited comic relief among the heart-wrenching situations the movie puts its child characters in.

While this is an important film, there are a couple of minor flaws. One of the biggest is the complete under use of Mira Sorvino as Tim’s wife, Katherine. An ending note at the conclusion of the film states that she was the biggest inspiration for Tim to keep the fight going to try to rescue as many child victims of human trafficking as possible. You wouldn’t know it from Sorvino’s brief role in the picture, though. Katherine urges Tim to quit his job to find and take Lucia from the villains who have taken her from her family. That’s about the extent of what is memorable about Sorvino who is OK in a role that could have been more. The film also becomes a lot more violent than it needed to be towards the end as Tim fights for survival. The tense situations the movie presents are nerve wracking to watch and this kind of makes the film unsettling to watch at times which could be seen as a pro more than a con.

Sound of Freedom is the type of movie that could make a huge difference if it gets seen by the right viewers and by politicians who can make a difference. This picture will also make the every day viewer more aware of what is going on and be more protective of their children in a world filled with disgusting people who could take away the innocence (and lives) of children for their own profiteering schemes.

In the end, director Alejandro Monteverde has crafted a picture that is very well made and speaks volumes about the topic it so fearlessly explores. At the end, there is a message from Caviezel that the picture was made some years back and it’s taken a fight to get this film seen and out to the public. The fact that the movie is now available to see by many potential audiences is a testament to the strength of the fight to end trafficking by those who have worked so diligently on this film. Sound of Freedom, while shocking and disturbing, is simultaneously hopeful and powerful. It’s the type of movie you respect for its very existence.

Rating: 7.5/10

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