How dangerous are child traffickers? The opening sequence of the new film Sound of Freedom dramatizes how families get conned into handing children over in hopes of new opportunities, but the real-life videos of child abductions in the film’s opening credits make the risk even more clear. Child sex trafficking is a global industry — and Sound of Freedom dramatizes the efforts by one man and his allies to fight back.

At the start of the film, we follow Tim Ballard on a Homeland Security operation to capture a pedophile and set him up as an unwitting resource to find traffickers. In the process, Ballard (Jim Caviezel) finds a small boy who had been lost to his father (Jose Zúñiga) in the pre-credit sequence. Miguel discovers that Ballard is the “Timoteo” known for rescuing children and asks him to find his sister — a journey that sends Ballard not just to the depths of depravity, not just to the most dangerous parts of Colombia, but a promise that will eventually result in a new mission of faith for Ballard.

The film itself is a mission of faith, literally. Sound of Freedom has waited five years since its completion to get a distribution deal, passing through Fox and Disney at various times. It has landed at Angel Studios, the home of the popular crowd-sourced TV series “The Chosen” that tells the story of Jesus’ mission from the Gospels. Angel Studios has settled on a grassroots campaign to get the word out on this film and on the work that Ballard himself continues to do at Operation Underground Railroad, the start of which the film dramatizes.

As such, some may assume that this is a film that can be pigeonholed as a “faith” film. It certainly has that, but Sound of Freedom is more than that. It’s a top-notch action/suspense film with a first-rate cast, perhaps most powerfully with the child actors playing the victims of traffickers. That’s a coup for director and writer Alejandro Monteverde, and a standout result especially in summer cinema that will likely be dominated by tentpole sequels and more escapist fare.

Caviezel, who is best known for playing Jesus in The Passion of the Christ and Luke in Paul the Apostle of Christ, gets to flex his action chops in a number of high-tension sequences, as well as his readily accessible emotional connection to audiences. Zúñiga makes the most of his time as the distraught father of the two children the film follows. We don’t get to see enough of Mira Sorvino, on hand to play Ballard’s wife (and Ballard himself agrees, as you’ll see below). Bill Camp (“Vampiro”) is moving as a man who has committed himself to atoning for past wrongs by using his connections and money to save children, and producer/actor Eduardo Verástegui has a small part as the “money” who saves the effort by Ballard and Vampiro in Colombia when DHS is forced to back out. The actors cast as the villains are equal to the task too, and the result is a very believable thriller that stands on its own even without the life-or-death message about trafficking and slavery.

Caviezel commands the screen, but the children are the focus and the heart of Sound of Freedom.  The danger and depravity to which they become subject is never portrayed explicitly on screen, but there is little doubt what has happened to them. And since this is based on real events and people, that knowledge carries a heavy burden on the heart while watching the film, and which will haunt you afterward — but the film pays that off in the end.

Sound of Freedom will not hit theaters until July 4. The early reviews and screenings are intended to generate grassroots interest and word-of-mouth promotion, and based on what I saw, it deserves all that and more. On the Hot Air scale, Sound of Freedom gets a 5:

• 5 – Full price ticket
• 4 – Matinee only
• 3 – Wait for Blu-Ray/DVD/PPV rental or purchase
• 2 – Watch it when it hits Netflix/cable
• 1 – Avoid at all costs

Sound of Freedom is rated PG-13 for violence and disturbing themes. It’s not for small children, but adolescents should be able to handle it with parental supervision and will definitely benefit from discussion of how to be safe.

Again, Angel Studios wants to kick this film off with a splash on Independence Day. They aim to sell 2 million tickets for opening day, the same number of children estimated to be trapped in child trafficking at the moment. They have a portal set up for presale of tickets at local theaters around the country, and as of early this afternoon over 445,000 tickets have already been purchased.

Earlier today, I spoke with the real Tim Ballard, whose actions are dramatized in Sound of Freedom, for the latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast. We spoke about the film itself, but we mainly focused on Tim’s continuing work in Operation Underground Railroad as well as The Nazarene Fund, which works to support at-risk Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Watching himself portrayed in film has been “very different, very surreal, really bizarre,” Tim tells me, but this isn’t about him. “The world is a very ugly place for millions of children,” Tim says, “and probably the most of effective thing we can do is is, is talk about it, get people outraged about it. And I think this film does that.”

Today’s show also covers:

• “My wife deserved way more time in the film because her role was so, so important,” Tim says, because it was her faith that drove the decision to make this his life’s work.
• “This is not paraphrase, this is verbatim,” Tim explains, “because it struck my soul. She said, I will not let you jeopardize my salvation by not doing this. And so I believed her.”
• “We’ve struggled getting mainstream media to talk about this,” Tim says, “either because it’s too dark or because there’s more people complicit than they want to admit, and they want to pretend it’s not happening or downplay it.”

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!