Sound of Freedom Movie Review, July 14, 2023

*The following is the original text of my review of the movie Sound of Freedom, with the exception that I changed two underlined sentences to be bold instead of underlined. The referenced email newsletter from The Asservo Project was included in the original email that I sent to some friends and family, but is not included here.*

Dear Friends and Family,

Attached below is an email newsletter from The Asservo Project (TAP) which is a non-profit that Margaret and I support.

"The Asservo Project works tirelessly to aid law enforcement in identifying individuals trafficking children and young adults, provide information to facilitate arrests, educate the public of trafficking dangers and assist in the recovery of victims." -TheAsservoProject.com

There are many organizations that also work against human trafficking and its causes, the most widely-known of which may be International Justice Mission.

In the below newsletter TAP CEO Joe Sweeney writes: "I am sure many of you have been to see the newly released movie Sound of Freedom!...I pray this impacts everyone who has seen it and motivates them to act on this criminal epidemic. Action is the only thing that will help reduce trafficking and child exploitation." [emphasis added]

Child sex trafficking is a real thing, and the best way to view the movie Sound of Freedom is as part of an awareness campaign against this specific kind of human trafficking.

I watched Sound of Freedom in the theater last night (Thursday night, 07/13) and I would say it does a very good job of staying focused on the main issue, giving a few facts to outline the problem, and illustrating (with a story) a few ways that the child sex abuse and child trafficking industries work and how they are connected.

If "the darkness" (the evil world of child trafficking and related industries) is a river, then the movie Sound of Freedom allows you to see how it flows, perhaps dip your toe in it, without being overwhelmed. I am not 100% confident in recommending the movie itself, particularly not to young teenagers and children, because it is a heavy subject. The story is sad and hopeful...Sad because a lot of evil has already happened and is happening, and hopeful because God loves his children and is using people to help them. We should be humbled and honored to have the opportunity to do any small thing for trafficked children.

I would caution you to be mindful of distractions from the issue of child trafficking. These distractions are coming out of the woodwork--largely specifically in response to the movie Sound of Freedom--from seemingly every imaginable direction, saying the issue is overblown in the movie and politically loaded in and outside the movie, etc. Some of these distractions arise from the real and alleged personal beliefs of the main character and the lead actor who I could paint very broadly as a conservative Mormon and a conservative Catholic respectively.

My main point about the movie is that a group of people with relatively diverse beliefs came together and found common ground in the fight against child sex trafficking and produced Sound of Freedom as part of an awareness campaign for the issue, and the movie itself stays true and pure to that objective. Any human being with a functioning conscience would have to perform intellectual acrobatics to make a case that this production is not a good work.

If we were to have a discussion about the issue of child trafficking, then we could address questions about the beliefs of the people behind the aforementioned production (Catholics and Mormons, among others) and particularly their beliefs about Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Delineating what degree of caution should be exercised when partnering with non-Christians on good projects would also be an interesting subject.

Since there is a lot of media and social noise surrounding the aforementioned production, it's worth remembering that the movie and its creators are not the issue (you can forget the movie, which is merely an awareness tool)...The issue is child sex trafficking and the call to action is that you can do something about it.