1,942 words
I am not ashamed to say that I cried throughout this entire movie. It’s those who see it and don’t have to at least fight back a few tears who should be ashamed. Indeed, the wildly different reactions provoked by this film reveal a great deal about our ever-deepening cultural divide — and how some of the most vocal and high-profile people on one side are really just downright evil. But you had probably already come to that conclusion.
As everyone knows by now, Sound of Freedom — the film’s title contains no definite article — is the story of Tim Ballard, a special agent for Homeland Security Investigations who sets off on a crusade to rescue children from sex traffickers in Colombia. Central to the plot is Ballard’s search for two children, a missing brother and sister. This part of the tale is fictitious. Critics have made much of the fact that elements in the film are fictionalized — as if they don’t know that all films based on true stories contain embellishment (they do know this, of course).
Here the embellishment is dramatically necessary, for the story of this brother and sister, and their father’s panic and grief on losing them to traffickers, helps ground the film in a specific case, dealing with specific victims with whom we identify and sympathize. It is a brilliant plot device. In fact, it was this element in the film that initially got my waterworks going, after which I just kept on crying, with a few brief respites. Had I known I was going to lose this much fluid, I would have brought an IV bag. Fighters looking to rapidly cut weight should see this film.
I’ve already told you enough about the plot. To say more would just spoil things. The acting is uniformly superb — and this includes the child actors. Jim Caviezel plays Tim Ballard with heroic, messianic intensity. Caviezel is an old hand at this: His last high-profile film role was playing Jesus in The Passion of the Christ. He has said that Tim Ballard is the second-most important role he has ever played. By the way, Caviezel also cries throughout the entire movie, which was gratifying because it meant that no one was going to point at me and laugh.
Cinematically, Sound of Freedom is not a great film in the class of, say, Vertigo or La Dolce Vita (I am tempted to also mention Death in Venice, though I might be accused of deliberate irony — or worse). Nor is the film without flaws. At 131 minutes, it felt overlong — with one too many climaxes. The friends with whom I saw it didn’t agree with me about this, however. They thought there was some corny dialogue — but if there was, I didn’t notice it. Director Alejandro Monteverde isn’t interested in flashy camerawork or trying to be “arty” (as my parents would say): He just wants to tell a riveting, gut-wrenching story that will move you and stay with you always. At this he succeeds.
The film closes with footage of the real Tim Ballard, who is an even more square-jawed, Aryan alpha than Caviezel. And the conclusion also features some astonishing statistics on how many children are believed to now be in sex slavery, and on the dramatic, recent increase in online child pornography. The closing credits also feature a split screen, with Caviezel on one side delivering an impassioned — and, yes, tearful — plea for people to spread the word about the tragedy that is child sex trafficking, and to get their friends to see the film. I left the theater feeling gung-ho about telling my friends to do just that — and texted one of them as soon as I got home. On Monday I’ll start telling the folks at my gym (a receptive audience: it’s a YMCA in the Deep South). You would think that fighting child sex trafficking and supporting Sound of Freedom is something we could all get behind, right?
Right?
Wrong. Reviews are “mixed.” Perhaps the most notorious example, of which you may have already heard, is the review that appeared in Rolling Stone, subtly titled “‘Sound of Freedom’ Is a Superhero Movie for Dads With Brainworms,” and subtitled “The QAnon-tinged thriller about child-trafficking is designed to appeal to the conscience of a conspiracy-addled boomer.” The reviewer, one Miles Klee, states that Caviezel “has become a prominent figure on the conspiracist right, giving speeches and interviews in which he hints at an underground holy war between patriots and a sinister legion of evildoers who are harvesting the blood of children.” And he calls this “straight-up QAnon stuff.”
You can buy Jef Costello’s The Importance of James Bond here
He’s referring to the “adrenochrome” theory, of which my readers have doubtless heard, and in which Caviezel really does believe (and he’s not hinting at it; he says it openly). Admittedly, this is a wild theory and I don’t really know what to think about it. Part of the resistance to the theory, however, is the assumption that no one could be so evil as to harvest the blood of children (said to be most potent and vivifying when the children are terrified).
Au contraire. This is a world in which pharmaceutical companies rigged their opioid “studies” in order to deliberately get millions hooked. This is the world that had Jeffrey Epstein in it. A world in which “democracy” must be “safeguarded” through censorship and the prosecution of opposition candidates. And it’s also a world in which “conspiracy theories” regularly turn out to be quite true.
If I had to bet money, I’d wager that adrenochrome is a real thing. But it’s a theory that’s much older than QAnon. Linking it to QAnon is a straight-up smear. No wonder that others are now repeating the same smear — notably CNN, in a video titled “‘Passion of the Christ’ Star Pushes False QAnon Conspiracy” (note how they always have to tell you what to think right in the title). Another critic writes that “Caviezel made it his business to cynically pander to this conservative religious ‘QAnon’ friendly audience, long before he starred in TV’s ‘Person of Interest,’ which was canceled because he’s just not an interesting, expressive actor person.” (Actually, Person of Interest was voluntarily brought to an end by its producers, after five successful seasons.)
But let’s stick with the Rolling Stone reviewer, who tells us, “Ballard, Caviezel, and others of their ilk had primed the public to accept Sound of Freedom as a documentary rather than delusion by fomenting moral panic for years over this grossly exaggerated ‘epidemic’ of child sex-trafficking.” This is also a line that is being pushed by others — but so far as I know, no one has raised credible issues with the statistics on child trafficking presented in the film. Why would someone want to downplay such a thing?
We get our answer in the next paragraph. Mr. Klee describes the film as
fetishizing the torture of its child victims and lingering over lush preludes to their sexual abuse. At times I had the uncomfortable sense that I might be arrested myself just for sitting through it.
Hmmmmm. That wasn’t my reaction at all. I didn’t see anything fetishistic or “lush” about the depiction either of the children or their abuse. Nor did I suffer from a guilty conscience watching those scenes, and fear I might be hauled off to jail. Methinks Mr. Klee hath confessed too much. He also chides the film for “enforcing stereotypes about trafficking,” and for its “hackneyed white savior narrative.”
Sound of Freedom was actually completed in 2018, but no studio wanted to release it. Finally, a distribution deal was made with the Latin American subsidiary of 20th Century Fox. But then that studio was purchased by the Walt Disney Company, which sat on the film and refused to release it. In the end, the filmmakers bought the distribution rights back from Disney and released Sound of Freedom on July 4. Why would Disney not want this film released? Could it be that Hollywood and their mouthpieces are so opposed to Sound of Freedom because the industry really is rife with pedophiles? I’m prepared to believe this — given that there’s a highly plausible case to be made that pedophiles run the rest of the world.
There are other things going on here, however. Sound of Freedom mentions that the United States is the world’s number one consumer of child pornography, and number one destination for child sex traffickers (it’s surprising to me how unsurprising I found this). Many children are brought into the country from Latin America, just as Sound of Freedom depicts, and this is greatly facilitated by the chaos at our southern border. Liberals correctly perceive that this forms the basis for a highly plausible, emotionally-charged case for sealing our border — one that both Republicans and rank-and-file, not-so-ideological Democrats could get behind. And they realize that Sound of Freedom is an incredibly effective tool that could ignite a nationwide discussion about this. But that cannot be allowed. We can’t let a little thing like child sex slavery slow down the Great Replacement. (Pardon me if that seems “straight-up QAnon.”)
My friends, I don’t know whether I believe in God, but with each passing day I become more and more convinced that there is a Devil.
Which reminds me: Sound of Freedom is also basically a Christian film — or “faith based,” as critics are saying. Caviezel, the one-time Jesus and protégé of Mel Gibson, is famously Catholic, and others involved in the film, both in front of and behind the camera, are believers. The film was distributed by Angel Studios, a company involved in distributing other Christian-themed films, based in heavily-Mormon Provo, Utah (Tim Ballard, incidentally is a Mormon). The marketing campaign for Sound of Freedom was financed through crowdfunding — no doubt with many donations coming from Christians of one denomination or another. (This is a film that unites Catholic and Protestant, including all the different flavors of Protestant.)
The film’s religious elements are handled with restraint. I never found them to be overbearing. But it’s too much religion for Hollywood and liberal journalists, whose loathing for Christianity far exceeds their loathing for pedophilia. Add to this the fact that Sound of Freedom cost a mere $14.5 million, and that it is currently beating Hollywood films costing hundreds of millions of dollars, and in much, much wider release. As I write this, Sound of Freedom is now the number two film in the country, after the new Mission: Impossible tedium. Sound of Freedom is beating the new Indiana Jones movie, even though the latter is showing at 1,748 more domestic theaters!
Could the message be any clearer? Hollywood has produced a string of mega-budget, over-produced, derivative, “woke” bombs — with Disney being hit particularly hard. (Look for Disney’s upcoming Snow White release to bomb big — with its brown-skinned Latina Snow White, and it’s normal-sized black and non-binary “dwarfs.”) What are Americans flocking to instead? A shoestring-budgeted Christian film about a handsome white savior with a beautiful white family fighting against physically repulsive — and mostly non-white — sex perverts. Of course they want to bury Sound of Freedom. But it’s now too big to stop.
The backlash has arrived. And it is only just getting started.
Please see this powerful film today (but bring a box of Kleenex). And tell your friends. Amongst other things, the film’s savvy marketing campaign features a “pay it forward” option allowing you to buy tickets for someone else. They can then claim the tickets online from the distributor’s website and watch the film in a cinema near them. You can access that function, as well as other information on Sound of Freedom, here.
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35 comments
Thanks for the update on this social and cultural phenomenon. I did not know the film was made in 2018 and just now got distribution.
Sound of Freedom (2023) 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥-𝐌𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐞 [𝐇𝐃]
WATCH HERE☛ https://bit.ly/timballard 🔥
Didn’t the Rockefeller boys all get regular blood transfusions from young boys? I seem to recall reading that somewhere.
“In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph.”
The wife and I saw it this weekend. It’s gut wrenching and she cried her eyes out throughout most of the film.
I’m sure I am not alone among readers when I say that the first time I heard about adrenochrome was reading Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas in high school. But it was several years later when I read The Franklin Cover-Up by former Nebraska state senator John DeCamp about the infamous Franklin Credit Union/Boys Town scandal that rocked my home town of Omaha in the mid eighties that I was not only reminded of this mythic drug but also of Hunter S. Thompson. In the book, one of the alleged victims claimed that he had met Thompson at a high profile party and alluded to him working on a new project to expose the whole pedophile network in D.C. and the entertainment industry. I’ve seen it claimed more than once that this was the reason he “killed himself.” I wouldn’t necessarily go that far myself but it still makes me think. Anyone unfamiliar with the Franklin scandal should look it up. Pretty crazy shit.
This is the hour long documentary Conspiracy Of Silence about the scandal that was supposed to air in 1993 on Discovery but was pulled last minute. Highly recommended.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZwxHlWfIxM&pp=ygUVQ29uc3BpcmFjeSBvZiBzaWxlbmNl&bpctr=1689619474
I am sure that after seeing Sound of Free’em, the hapless rabble will be lining up for their Musk-Microchips so everyone can be tracked everywhere, at all times, without their consent, and having their babies implanted with RFID-tracking gizmos from the moment they pop out the womb.
It’s for the children, you see. Don’t you care about the children?
I know, right? Just like all of those retarded right-wingers that rushed right out for their “Fauci Ouchie” and umpteen boosters because Steven Colbert told them to.
Sheesh. Tell me you’ve never even spoken to a conservative without actually saying “I’ve never even spoken to a conservative.”
The ‘adenochrome’ conspiracy theory has all the hallmarks of a classic blood-libel. We can hardly seize the intellectual high ground if we entertain such balderdash.
There are some “classic blood libels” that have a good deal of evidence behind them. As I said in the review, I don’t really have a position on andrenochrome — but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turned out to be true. It’s obviously a mistake to decide to believe that all the “conspiracy theories” denounced by the establishment must be true. But it is a good methodological assumption (to assume that everything they say is the opposite of the truth) — to be maintained until evidence decides the issues one way or another.
Thanks for this great review of the film Jeff. I can’t wait to see it.
Jeff, I strongly suggest, if you haven’t already, and to other’s who are also interested, to immediately read;
‘Review of “Passovers of Blood” by Ariel Toaff.’ By Bernard M. Smith. 6/12/23. You can read it over at TOO and also Unz.
It’s absolutely mind blowing. Toaff, a history professor from Israel, writes a book and proves that the blood libels actually happened. Bernard M. Smith who reviews this book, I believe was a normie writer and is now one of us, either way, he is a great writer.
After you read his review, you’ll never look at the world the same way again.
Google’s Android chip architecture is called Adreno. Their browser is Chrome. The Chrome logo contains three ‘6’s.
Just saying….
What are the odds?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adreno
Regarding Chrome logo, I never noticed it, but after I read your comment I clearly see it! Fascinating!
This is exactly as tenable as the innumerable appearances of the claim that the Parthenon was designed in accordance with the Golden Ratio. Or, from a more conspiratorial standpoint, the idea that L’Enfant’s plan for Washington, D.C. incorporated Satanic imagery. Coincidences, all.
Nah. It’s deliberate, but they’re probably trolling us or it could be part of the QAnon disinformation project. Then again maybe it IS Satanism with plausible deniability as an off-colour joke. Coincidences like that don’t just happen by accident.
What if a German competitor had a chip called Leibstand and a browser called Arte SS (could stand for schnell schauen – show quickly) ? The logo would naturally contain an artfully concealed swastika.
Excellent hypothesis! Who would believe such a coincidence regarding the German Tech company. Let me think …maybe (((they))) will think that it’s just a coincidence?!!
Adenochrome is a derivative of epinephrine (adrenaline) which is available by the bucketload. The synthesis route from common organic compounds has been known for over a century. Harvesting it from children would be the least efficient way to obtain it!
I was wondering when someone to pick up on this.
Excellent article, thank you!
“Methinks Mr. Klee hath confessed too much” … exactly my thoughts as I read this person’s confessions. One doesn’t need to be a trained psychologist to figure it out.
I didn’t know about Disney and other distributors shelving the film since 2018. It is very telling, but quite frankly not surprising.
I am not a religious person but sadly I have to concur that there definitely exist many devils among us.
Thanks again Mr. Castello for your insightful contributions.
Jef, your writing is so beautiful. It should be worth noting that one man being deeply pained by this movie and another obviously getting a boner is proof enough of good and evil. Search for God with sincerity and you will find Him.
There is a Bloomberg article about the film titled ”Is Sound Of Freedom a QAnon dog whistle or just another thriller?” by Noah Berlatsky. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, he was a spokesperson for the group Prostasia, a M.A.P.(minor attracted person) advocacy group. He once tweeted “Pedophiles are essentially a stigmatized group. Certain people get designated as deviants, people hate them.”
That is one of the things that Hollywood wants is the normalization of deviancy.
Thanks, Weave. Eloquently put. Most appreciated.
I hope that some day a similar film will be made, titled Rotherham.
I can’t wait to see the Guardian review of that one.
I haven’t seen this film and don’t intend to, actually. I stopped attending movies almost 20 years ago and my life is better for it. Then again, I don’t drink beer or celebrate “pride” week or watch professional athletics either. How wonderful that so many “mainstream” people are coming around to my way of thinking.
That being said, the value of this film may be assessed, at least in part, by the amount of mud slung at it and its viewers by its Liberal and Jewish detractors.
I gave up on Christianity a long time ago, even before I gave up on Hollywood movies, but Christians sometimes do the right thing, whether by inadvertence or design, and this appears to be an example of that. The huge public support of this movie reminds me of the public support for Mel Gibson’s “Passion of Christ” in spite of all the opposition to that film by liberals and Jews. It was wonderful seeing so many Christians get up off their knees, defy the Jewish rulers of this country and act like people instead of farm animals. That appears to be happening with this film too. All things considered, this film and its public impact are positive things, occurring, as they are, in the wake of the boycotts of Bud Light, Target and Disney.
“My friends, I don’t know whether I believe in God, but with each passing day I become more and more convinced that there is a Devil.”
This. It took me a while but I, too, arrived at this place. This right here is where the intellectualism and philosophizing we all come here for are revealed as fetters.
We’re facing Evil. If we fail to fight – not argue, not protest, not whine or wheedle, but fight — then we deserve to go under. If we fail to fight and there is a God, we deserve to burn. We will have earned it.
Well said. I agree.
There is a God.
The creators of this film are serving Him.
While the blood drinkin pedos serve Satan.
I think I’ve overdosed on Boomer Moral Panic (BMP), from this article and many of the comments. Anyone who believes in the goofy adrenochrome stuff, I have some sweet beachfront property in Fargo, North Dakota you may be interested in.
The median person believes in all sorts of crazy and nearly everyone loves rituals: from the eucharist to making coffee in the morning, Pilates, gym-going, walking the dog every day before work, et cetera ad nauseam. Is it so implausible that some narcissistic people might be drawn into Satanic cults? I would suggest an open mind. The Google-Adreno-Chrome-666 ‘coincidence’ is a phenomenon to be explained. To me it is most likely an in-joke with or without sinister overtones. And I’ll pass on your real estate deal, thank you.
P.S. Don’t forget Google’s old motto: ‘Don’t be evil’……
If there’s one thing we can agree on it’s that yes, most people believe and do slightly retarded and irrational things. Also, Satanic/Left-hand path cults have certainly existed throughout history, that stuff is light years away from Q-tards that believe Hillary Clinton is getting drunk on the blood of terrified children.
An intelligent review. If I’m well enough, and the film is still in theaters in a few weeks, this review has inspired me to try to see it.
One question: is there any white racial angle to any of this; specifically, wrt the issue of the race of the children being sex-trafficked? Obviously, any such sex trafficking is disgusting as well as despicable, regardless of the race of the victims. But I hear about things like “white [sex] slavery”, especially viz the Arab world, and I wonder… We know that, centuries ago, millions of our people were enslaved by Barbary pirates and other Muslim slavers. Does anyone doubt that vast numbers of stolen children in the past were probably sex-enslaved? I literally cannot imagine the attraction to pre-pubescent children, any more than I can grasp other sexual fetishes, from homosexuality to “bondage” to transvestitism (this is another justification for eugenic research: as I’m certain that adult sexual orientation has a substantial genetic determinist component to it, perhaps eventually the genetic constellation that results in pedophilia can be identified and then embryonically engineered out of the human gene pool). I can, however, easily imagine some Muslim slave-“groomer” paying for a pretty girl child, and then taking her into his harem once she had sexually matured.
Anyway, while I certainly feel sorry for any children captured by pervert traffickers, we should always be directing our severely limited resources – including our emotional outrage and altruistic impulses – to protecting our racial children above all (especially if my suspicion that child rapists prefer to terrorize and violate white children most of all is correct). When I imagine a nonwhite predator molesting a white child my rage is limitless and merciless. (I wonder if I’ll get too emotionally overwrought seeing this film.)
I’ve enjoyed Jef’s essay. I saw Sound of Freedom four days ago ad was all primed to write CC my review, and he beat me to it. As it is, I don’t disagree with most of it. it is a very strong film, and it was a pleasure seeing it knock Indiana Jones out of attendance opening night. As I said earlier, when I saw a preview of Harrison Ford riding a freaking horse on subway tracks, I just laughed. Hollywood is dead. it has no imagery anymore; like the country it mirrors, everything is stagnant, decaying, controlled by old people (Boomers old!) who won’t give over control.
The film’s success recalled another film, Unplanned (2019), dealing with Abby Johnson, a pro-abortion administrator who turned pro-life. A very strong, quiet film. The line Cavaziel’s character says, “When God tells you what to do you cannot hesitate,” is powerful and his character is truly heroic, human, a family man…a very strong contrast to what the system offers.
If I have any ruminations, it is that he is a sample of the white man who comes in and changes everything. All well and good, and no one can seriously offer a defense of child trafficking or what it essentially supports, pedophilia. But if his character felt God called him to fight “terrorism? Nazis? Racists?” This adulation can easily be turned, and I wonder if there is some kind of trickery involved by someone. Also, the film is set in Latin America, directed by a Latin American, with a largely Latino cast. Doesn’t this show the Latinoization of North America? I sense that while this is a victorious “Trump” movie, if you will, it also, like Trumpism, makes a great point of showing toughness, but what would be done in America? Cavaziel said as much in a short when he spoke of Epstein’s Island, and had the film directly attacked Jews in America and the pols who are with them, it would never have been made, let alone released.
Also, I admit I wasn’t that fond seeing Homeland Security shown as a good guy. The agency has done little except create a surveillance state. Also, I note when the perverts are busted, we have a gang of cops in body armor, helmets, bulling their way in and shoving the suspect around. I don’t like these tactics, because they are being used against us. But I understand the director’s view showing contemporary law enforcement. We are a police state.
But this film made an important statement in that it has challenged the system. In effect, the pedophiles who are sponsored and allied to the system feel they’ve been attacked, hence the rough criticism. Their world is dead. They have nothing to offer us except nihilism and corruption. When you have critics like Berlatsky, that says enough.
I also thought the film did very good with its budget and scenery, looking very handsome, as well as having a good supporting cast. it didn’t need the tens of millions that the Indiana Jones film had. It was a well spent evening, and also, the performance was almost sold out.
Good comment. I saw the film yesterday, along with the new Indiana Jones movie (I actually went to see Oppenheimer and Sound of Freedom, but the showing of Oppy I wanted was sold out except for a few crappy seats in the very first row, which I hate). I was also about 15min late due to a long ticket line (I guess for the ridiculous Barbie movie). I only entered the screening at the point when Ballard was entrapping the initial creepy looking pedo (the guy who reminded me of one of the Ramones). But I saw everything from when he started his search for the brother and then sister. Despite this being in the middle of the afternoon, the theater was packed.
I agree with what you’ve written. Sound of Freedom was well-directed, well-acted, and, where relevant, beautifully photographed. This is a real movie (ie, what audiences have come to expect from commercial films in terms of technical professionalism; it’s not some cheaply produced movie that people endorse because “its heart’s in the right place”), albeit not one with special effects (had I directed it, I would have put in some cool wildlife shots, at least when going upriver – maybe a lurking crocodile, or some multicolored birds – just to emphasize the exotic location).
Also, I think the script should have included more scenes of the Ballard family. The discussion scene between Ballard and his wife was way too brief (and essentially unrealistic), given that this father of six, most or all of whom seemed to be minors, was physically abandoning his family for an extended period of time to engage in extremely risky work. I would very much liked to have seen some sort of ‘adult’ quasi-theological discussion at least acknowledging that the decision to do this was hardly as morally unproblematic as it would have been had Ballard been single and childless.
I disagree with Costello, however, about the depictions of the pedophiles. They were not mostly nonwhite (though the actual sex traffickers were repulsive 3rd worlders). The Ramones-looking dude was either white or mostly white, and there were two white pedos depicted. The only nonwhite pedo I can remember was the Colombian guerilla leader (who almost certainly would be nonwhite in real life).
Unlike Dial of Destiny which opened here in advance of the US, Sound of Freedom is not, and most likely will not screen in the Antipodes. We are a much less godly country.
However there is a film review today, from the nearly two hundred year old rag, The Sydney Morning Herald, which aims to poison the well. It seems comically obvious in its intent but I suspect will work just fine on the target readership.
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/movies/the-qanon-adjacent-film-that-s-become-a-massive-box-office-hit-20230719-p5dpeo.html
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