‘Sound of Freedom’ Review: Jim Caviezel Anchors a Solidly Made and Disquieting Thriller About Child Sex Trafficking
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic “Sound of Freedom” is being sold as a “conservative” thriller. It’s based on the true story of Tim Ballard, the former Homeland Security Special Agent who has devoted himself to fighting child sex trafficking, and who took his crusade private when he founded Operation Underground Railroad, with backing from Glenn Beck.
The movie stars Jim Caviezel, who ever since he took on the title role of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” 19 years ago, has been a go-to actor for the kind of faith-based projects that the vast majority of Hollywood stars steer clear of.
Wearing a trim dark beard and coppery blond hair, Caviezel plays Ballard as a beatific G.I. Joe meets George C. Scott in “Hardcore” meets an avenging Jesus.
The movie has a Christian undercurrent that occasionally becomes an overcurrent, as when Ballard explains why he’s fixated on the crime of trafficking: “Because God’s children are not for sale.” “Sound of Freedom” has been heavily marketed on right-wing media, like Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, and — one of the grand subtexts of all of this — in taking on the issue of the horrific criminals who kidnap and traffic children, the film could be seen as adjacent to the alt-right paranoia that was originally stoked by 4Chan and QAnon: the wing-nut conspiracy theory about a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor being a front for a pedophile ring, extending into the larger conspiracy theory that says that the culture of liberalism is a racket to protect and cover up the actions of pedophiles.
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