SOUND OF FREEDOM : Tuesday 29th August 2023.

I saw the M Rated 'SOUND OF FREEDOM' at my local multiplex this week and this American action film is Co-Written and Directed by Alejandro Monteverde in his third feature film outing after 'Bella' in 2006 and 'Little Boy' in 2015, with the biographical film 'Cabrini' due out sometime in 2024. This film was released in early July this year, and became a sleeper hit having so far grossed US$182M against a US$15M production budget. It has generated mixed reviews from critics, while audience reception has been highly positive. 

Based on a true story, the film opens in the Honduras capital city of Tegucigalpa, where Roberto (Jose Zuniga), a poor father of two, receives a knock on the door from a former beauty queen, Giselle (Yessica Borroto). She offers to sign his young children, Miguel (Lucas Avila) and Rocio (Cristal Paricio), up with child modelling contracts. The next day, with the two young children suitably dressed up he rides with them on the bus to the allotted place for the photoshoot - an apartment in a run down block. Giselle meets him at the door and tells Roberto that he is not permitted entry and to return promptly at 7:00pm to collect his two children. When he returns at 7:00pm to collect his children, they are no where to be seen. He runs frantically from door to door but no one answers and then out onto the street searching for them but to no avail. It is revealed soon after that the children were sold to be used as sex slaves, bundled in the back of a van with the other children, then to the local port, into a shipping container and carted off to some faraway place on a container ship for their lives to be changed irreversibly. 

Meanwhile, in Calexico, California, Tim Ballard is working as a Special Agent for the Homeland Security Investigations - a job he has done for the past twelve years or so, where he arrests people who possess and distribute child pornography. The often painful and emotional work takes a great toll on his personal life, although his wife Katherine (Mira Sorvino) is understanding and supportive. Another agent, Chris (Scott Haze), points out that they have arrested many child predators during their time but have failed to save even a single child from being exploited. Tim responds that this is because most of them are outside the US, but nonetheless Chris's words resonate with him. He speaks to a predator he recently arrested, Ernst Oshinsky (Kris Avedisian), and makes out to be a pedophile himself, so gaining his trust. Once he has gained that trust, he sets up a meeting with a trafficked child, and is able to arrest Earl Buchanan (Gary Basaraba), the man who purchased Miguel, at the border crossing with Mexico. 

And so Tim rescues Miguel, and after he is released from hospital, befriends him and over a burger and ice cream gently asks him for information that would help him find other children. Tim learns that Miguel's sister Rocio is still missing, and the boy asks him to save her. Tim arranges for Miguel to return home to Roberto, but not before Miguel gives Tim his sister's Saint Timothy pendant. Tim starts looking for Rocio, and his search leads him to Cartagena, Colombia, where he is introduced to Vampiro (Bill Camp), a former cartel accountant who now works to save children from sex trafficking.

Tim learns about a child sex club in Thailand that was shut down, but decides that this would be the perfect cover story to acquire a large number of Giselle's children in a sting operation. Vampiro gets a Colombian police officer, Jorge (Javier Godino), and a wealthy local citizen named Paul (Eduardo Verastegui, who also Produces here) to assist in Tim's mission. Tim's supervisor, Frost (Kurt Fuller), is only able to provide funding for the operation up to US$10K and ultimately asks him to return to the US and forget about his mission as it is outside their jurisdiction. As a result Tim resigns his position, ten months out from being able to retire on a pension, rather than abandon the search for Rocio.

And so Tim, Vampiro, Paul and Jorge arrange for the sex club to be set up on a small island just off the coast. Frost is able to persuade the staff of the US Embassy in Colombia to assist with Tim's rescue operation. Undercover, they convince Giselle to sell them between 50 and 60 children, and at the launch party Jorge's armed men are waiting in a secluded bay for the final boat load of children to arrive. When they do finally arrive, Jorge's men successfully storm the island and arrest all of the conspirators and Giselle, and free the children, but Rocio is not among them. In the aftermath, all of the children are seen in tandem clapping their knees and hands in a rhythmic beat which Vampiro remarks to Tim, that it's the 'sound of freedom'.

Jorge, who interrogates one of Giselle's business partners, learns that Rocio was sold to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, who are entrenched deep in the Amazon natural region. Jorge advises Tim that there is no way to retrieve the girl, because the region is largely unmapped jungle wilderness, and any rebel territory is a no-go zone for the Colombian government. Vampiro suggests an alternative course of action stating that doctors are permitted into the region for medical reasons, which gives Tim the idea to pose as doctors. Jorge reluctantly agrees to the dangerous operation. After Jorge drives them as far as the dirt road will allow them to travel Tim and Vampiro attempt to enter enemy territory in disguise and alone in a boat. The rebels soon rock up in a boat all guns blazing and after checking their supplies and seeing that they are unarmed and only carrying vaccines, they refuse to let more than one of them enter, leaving Tim to enter the area alone. 

Tim gains access to the rebel camp where Rocio is being held and learns that she is being used as the personal sex slave for the rebel leader, El Alacran ('the scorpion' - Gerardo Taracena), and along with others is required to mash coca leaves with her feet to produce cocaine which funds the rebel war against the Colombian government. Tim comes across Rocio while she is doing this at the end of the day, and whispers her name, to which she eventually responds.

Later that evening after Tim has located Rocio sleeping in El Alacran's hut, Tim is forced to kill him while freeing Rocio. Tim and Rocio, under cover of darkness, make their way back through the jungle undergrowth to the boat and then the designated pick up point with Jorge and Vampiro are waiting. Despite the rebels being in hot pursuit and firing on them, having discovered their fearless leaders lifeless body, Tim brings Rocio back to freedom. Before they part, he gives her back the necklace Miguel gave him earlier. Rocio wakes in a hospital bed when she is finally reunited with her father and brother, and the family later return home to Honduras. Stay in your seat for a 'Special Message' given by Jim Caviezel about three minutes after the end credits have begun to roll. 

It's easy to see why this movie has resonated with audiences more than it has with critics. From an audience perspective this is a real life telling of a sombre, at times heart wrenching, thought provoking issue writ large on a global scale that for the most part we get to hear very little about as we go about our daily lives. It's not until a film like this comes along that slaps you around the face and tells you to wake up and do something about the fact that there are now more people enslaved today than at any other time in our history, including when slavery was legal. From a critical standpoint this film is a procedural cops & robbers story that has more in common with the TV series of the last ten or fifteen years a la 'Criminal Minds' et al. That said Jim Caviezel is well cast as Tim Ballard and gives a nuanced performance, and Bill Camp as the constant stogie smoking, whisky swilling and wise cracking sidekick Vampiro also holds his own here. And as for Director Alejandro Monteverde, he has crafted a well made thriller that tells an important story that will give you something to think about long after the end credits have rolled. 

'Sound of Freedom' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-