The action-thriller Sound of Freedom has now been released in Australian cinemas – but its arrival is riddled with baggage.
It was a sleeper hit, initially overshadowed by and when it was first released last month. Now, it’s one of the highest-grossing movies released in the US this year.
Jim Caviezel (who played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ), stars as Tim Ballard, the real-life Homeland Security Agent who creates a charity to combat child traffickers.
But for many reasons, separate from the heavy subject matter at the focus of the film, the movie is leaving people uncomfortable.
And now it’s available across cinemas in Australia – with Dendy cinemas (co-owned by Mel Gibson) also screening the movie, citing “overwhelming demand”. In a tweet promoting the movie, the film’s distributors said, “Break the Silence. Save The Children,” a popular phrase coined by QAnon.
The first controversy: The QAnon support
The movie was shot in 2018, at a time was starting to gain traction.
And its script was written in 2015, well before the movement’s emergence in 2017, its writer and director Alejandro Monteverde told entertainment news publication Variety.
While the film, made by Angel Studios, tells a non-partisan story and doesn’t reference QAnon, believers of the conspiracy theory have latched onto the film, promoting it for their own agenda.
QAnon followers believe that left-leaning elites in government, Hollywood stars and billionaires run a paedophile and human trafficking ring. They also believe that these people are harvesting an adrenaline-like substance from children to attain eternal life. Former US President Donald Trump is also thought by followers to be waging a secret battle against this “deep state” scheme.
It hasn’t helped that lead actor Caviezel has repeated several QAnon phrases on conservative talk shows like “andrenochroming,” the false term used to describe the extraction of a substance from child victims to harvest the elixir of youth. He has also used other language of the movement (“a big storm is coming”) and in 2021, attended a QAnon-adjacent conference.
Aside from QAnon believers, the movie is being championed by other notable conservative figures like Trump, who hosted a viewing party at his golf course with Caviezel and the agent who inspired his role in attendance.
Monteverde, who did not attend, said the political ties from others were hurting his film, and he prefers to keep his distance.
The second controversy: Misleading portrayals of child trafficking
In Sound of Freedom, Caviezel as Ballard takes on a crime syndicate in Colombia after children are snatched by strangers.
This depiction has stoked concern from human and child trafficking experts who say while people can be kidnapped by strangers and trafficked, it’s not the typical way it’s done.
Typically, it’s done by someone who knows the person and exploits that trust. Now, experts are concerned the hype around this film could actually do more harm than good and prevent people from spotting the most common – actually foreseeable – warning signs.
Elizabeth Campbell, co-director of the University of Michigan’s Human Trafficking Clinic, told NPR: “By doing that, I think we make actual victims of human trafficking more invisible and more vulnerable to exploitation.”
World’s Children, a charity supporting vulnerable children, says poor families with financial struggles and debt, and kids who have run away or are homeless are most at risk of being trafficked.
The third controversy: One of the donors was charged with child kidnapping
Explaining this one requires some context.
The Sound of Freedom was independently filmed in 2018, on a budget of about $14.5m ($22.1m), but was delayed when its distributor, 21st Century Fox, was bought by Disney in 2019.
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the delay, and then in 2023, distribution rights were acquired by Angel Studios.
Child-trafficking experts are saying the anti-trafficking film could do more harm than good. Credit: Angel Studios
Angel Studios is a self-described values-based company, though others call it faith-based, as it is behind a number of Christian movies and shows. Before distributing original content, Angel Studios made its brand by removing nudity, swearing and violence from mainstream movies and shows before it was sued by a number of well-known Hollywood studios for copyright.
To raise the $5m ($7.8m) the company needed to distribute and market the film, it crowdfunded the money from “angel” investors.
One of the film’s many investors, Fabian Marta, was arrested on 23 July and charged as an accessory for child kidnapping in the US state of Missouri, NewsWeek reported. While the details of the case are not public, this charge carries a penalty of 10 to 30 years in prison or life imprisonment.
The fourth controversy: The Pay-It-Forward sales are misleading
It’s true the film has been unexpectedly popular, grossing more than the latest Mission: Impossible and Indiana Jones movies in the US.
But some of these sales are being called into question.
In the film’s closing credits, the hero of the film, Caviezel, asks viewers to “” by buying someone else a ticket. It’s unclear how many of those tickets actually translated into actual views, but people online have noticed that the theatres have sometimes been more vacant than online seat availability suggests.
On the Angel Studios site, under the heading, “How can I join the fight to end child trafficking?” the creators say, “Seeing the film is the first step in spreading awareness about child trafficking,” before suggesting to pay it forward or claim a free ticket.
Paying it forward will help you “join a historical movement to promote stories that amplify light,” it writes.
In the last paragraph, there is a link giving viewers a different resource (other than paying it forward).
Answering another question asking what will happen to extra funds, if tickets aren’t claimed, Angel Studios said on its website, “Remaining funds from Pay it Forward may also be used to help the filmmaker create additional content.”
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