Sound of Freedom (2023)

Directed by Alejandro Monteverde. Starring Jim Caviezel, Bill Camp, Eduardo Verástegui, José Zúñiga, Javier Godino, Kris Avedisian, Yessica Borroto, Gerardo Taracena, Kurt Fuller. [PG-13]

Fictionalized story of Homeland Security Agent Tim Ballard’s (Caviezel) crusade against child sex traffickers stands proud behind an ideological shield—it’s a subject any reasonable person can get behind (heck, even a large percentage of white supremacists would condemn the kidnapping, transporting, and molestation of minors)—which is meant to serve as protection from lucid assertions that it’s a terrible piece of filmmaking in both conception and execution. It’s exploitation at its most hypocritical, music and image and theme and rhythm all shoddily working together to rub the viewer’s nose in the horrors of abuse without identification or logic or human emotion that doesn’t come from a can. Caviezel’s grave, gravelly monotone makes him seem robotic, although we’re left with the vaguely insistent impression that he feels, dammit. We get our closeups of a disgusted Ballard shedding manly tears for a cause in which he attaches himself with grim dedication (when asked why, he murmurs, “Because God’s children are not for sale”). Too bad that any tears I might have shed would have been out of boredom, since this half-baked attempt to cast halo-light on real-world atrocities drags so badly, I was getting restless during the first hour, and the pace does not pick up in the second. Why bother with character definition or procedural details or conversations that don’t sound written by a computer or a single spark of energy when the camera can eternally linger with artless austerity? (If you didn’t think solemnity could be fetishized, this movie is proof it can.) I had checked out long before the gloopy angelism of the sanguine finale, but what a fitting capper. Mel Gibson is listed onscreen as one of the executive producers, but considering the crowdfunding campaign that raised millions to fund the film, I’m sure plenty of financiers got vanity credit plates (including one, Fabian Marta, who was arrested and charged with felony child kidnapping—oops!). Mira Sorvina has a minor role as Ballard’s wife.

15/100