Sound of Freedom’s success proves America is not only a different country – it’s a different planet

Forget Barbenheimer or Tom Cruise riding motorbikes off cliffs. The true phenomenon at the American box office this summer has been Sound of Freedom, a creepy and breathtakingly dreary child trafficking thriller starring Passion of the Christ’s Jim Caviezel and bankrolled by evangelical Christian distributor, Angel Studios.

Without studio support or big-name actors, it has blitzed its way to a US box office of more than $180 million and one point was out-performing Cruise’s Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning. The film now finally crosses the Atlantic. Its arrival proves that not only is America a different country – there are times it feels like a different planet. 

In the United States, Sound of Freedom has become known as the QAnon movie. It’s actually been in development since before the 2017 QAnon conspiracy, which postulates the American left is orchestrating a global child trafficking scandal. But director Alejandro Monteverde plugs neatly into the QAnon worldview where paedophiles lurk on every street corner and only good men with God on their side can keep our children safe. 

In Sound of Freedom, the good man is Tim Ballard, a real-life anti-trafficking activist and devout Mormon. The story is loosely based on Ballard’s experiences in South America – though even he has admitted the movie takes liberties with the truth. 

Whatever about tweaking the facts, the film displays a worrying intoxication with the nuts and bolts of kidnapping and abusing children. Over and over, the camera lingers on the abducted kids. Is Sound Of Freedom about paedophiles or for them?