Sound of Freedom Review
Jim Caviezel so effectively captures the essence of a man deeply affected and tortured by his line of work as a Homeland Security federal agent who combats child traffickers. The film starts with him and his partner catching one such scum bag. Afterwards Ballard's partner is torn up over it and says he's ready to quit. "You and I both know most of those kids are probably outside U.S. jurisdiction, so our job is to catch the pedafiles and that's it, right?" Ballard tells his partner after he asks him how many kids he's saved versus pedafiles he's caught.
Part of Ballard's job is to look at all the evidence and what he sees from his collar disgusts him. So he takes action and convinces the pedafile he's one of them. Ballard gets him released and goes undercover as the pedafile's friend seeking to buy a child for the weekend. Ballard plays his part to perfection even though it makes him unable to stomach himself. As harrowing as all this true story-based subject matter is it still reminded me of Caviezel's time on Person of Interest where his character John Reese would routinely go undercover with scum bags like the one in this film in order to infiltrate their schemes and take them down. And take him down he does here. "I trusted you," croaks the pedafile disbelievingly when he realizes that Ballard has betrayed him. "Never trust a pedafile," Ballard retorts.
The op leads them to rescue a young boy in the custody of a child trafficker. An emotional connection is formed between Ballard and the boy and after he returns him to his father he realizes he must save the boy's sister who is still in the hands of child traffickers. Thus, Ballard sets off to Cartagena and allies himself with a seedy sort of fellow by the name of Vampiro who helps him learn how to blend into the underworld pedafile environment. Ballard wants to set up a meeting with the woman who ensnares the children into the slavery by feigning to represent a talent agency but Vampiro insists this isn't a woman you set up a meeting with. So, Ballard comes up with a plan to start a sex hotel drawing in the child traffickers to catch them and save the children. The only problem is that Homeland won't let him do it and tells him to come home. After some debate and at the counsel of his wife Ballard decides to take a stand and leaves his job at Homeland to rescue the children.
What plays out from here feels much like a heist movie or even Mission: Impossible/Person of Interest but without the romanticed nature of those stories as this is a very much a story focused squarely on the child trafficking angle. That's not to say it's not without moments of comedic levity or great character moments. It is. However the emotional experience is very surreal as well as you can feel Caviezel's performance reverberating off of you. Such an example is when he is in the company of the child traffickers posing as his scum of the earth sex hotel investor character and in certain moments he laughs psychotically along with the others. What Caviezel does here is show what Ballard was going through when he had to play an evil man, feeling a piece of his soul die at the same time. After a number of suspensful obstacles Ballard and special forces are able to save the children and catch the traffickers. They saved 54 kids. But none of them were the boy's sister.
Ballard investigates and discovers that the girl is being held captive by a Colombian drug lord. The Mexican government won't go there though neither will the U.S. So it's up to just Ballard to save her. He and Vampiro wade into Colombian jungle territory posing as doctors with the United Nations. Several gunmen in a boat confront them upon their arrival. Convinced they are of no threat they leave Vampiro behind while taking Ballard into enemy territory. He's on his own.
The climax sees Ballard in a sort of James Bond-esque role carrying out a one-man-war against the drug cartel. Ballard finds the girl and determining which house she is staying in sneaks in at night and makes contact with her. The girl at first screams catching the attention of the drug lord. As he sets off to check on her Ballard quickly tells the girl what she must do if either of them is to make it out of there alive. The drug lord enters the house where the girl tells him she had a bad dream. He tells her he'll make it go away and proceeds to carry her off to his bedroom. Before he can carry out his heinous act, Ballard steps out and tells her it's time for her to close her eyes. She does but periodically opens them to see the carnage that is the fight between Ballard and the drug lord. The fight culminates in the lord's death. And so Ballard makes his escape with the girl by boat followed behind by gunmen. They make it to land and with Vampiro and the Mexican agent escape by car through the mountains.
Back home the girl is reunited with her father and brother. Ballard's mission is complete. And yet it's not. As revealed in the true story titles at the end Ballard continued to fight to save children caught in slavery before he finally returned home. In the special video message at the end Jim Caviezel iterates that this movie isn't meant to spread fear but rather give hope for the future. Also since Angel Studios isn't one of the major studios that can spend hundreds of millions to market the film it's the job of everyone in the audience to spread the word about the film because, "The storyteller is the most powerful person in the world and right now these children could be the most powerful people on the planet just by having their story told". And there's no better way to do that than via the medium of the cinema. I know when my 2 PM screening of this film was over I and the others in my theatre had to take a minute before getting up to go as it was that impactful a film. And as I walked out those auditorm doors I felt myself and my view of the world somehow changed. I think it's great when a movie has the power to do that and this one does it in spades. Go see this movie and know that God's Children Are Not For Sale.
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