YMMV / Sound of Freedom

• And You Thought It Would Fail: Big movie studios were understandably had cold feet at the subject matter and many thought it would also scare audiences away. The contrary apparently happened and the film turned into a Sleeper Hit that ate in the opening box office of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and held up even as the juggernauts Barbie and Oppenheimer came into the picture. The film went on to score a 38% box office increase in its second weekend from its opening weekend. In fact, it's the only live-action film to open in over 2,000 theaters and improve in its second weekend that can't be attributed to a holiday boost. Of course, there have been accusations of the so-called "pay it forward" movement — the idea of people having seen the movie and paying for tickets for others to see — artificially increasing the numbers. TikTok and other videos of people have shown supposedly sold out showings actually having no one in the theaters watching. Some critics have accused people of artificially boosting the film's popularity by buying out entire showings.
• Angst Aversion: One major hurdle for the film is that any audience that can't stand the first ten minutes or so probably won't be able to stomach the rest of the movie any better. While hope is a major and constant theme, the sheer depravity on display and misery inflicted upon countless innocent children can make even a few hardcore supporters of the movie uncomfortable watching it more than once.
• Catharsis Factor: Any time one of the villains get taken down is satisfying, given the horrible things they're up to, but especially Tim's beatdown of Rocio's buyer, The Scorpion.
• Complete Monster: While the film contains its fair share of terrible and disgusting people, these two prove to be superior to all others in sheer cruelty and depravity:
  • Giselle, real name Katy Juarez, also known as Cartagena, is a former beauty queen turned heartless child trafficker. Posing as a kind and friendly talent agent, Gisele manipulates poor parents into sending their children for a "photo shoot", only to kidnap them. Kidnapped children are stripped of their identities before being sold en masse for child pornography, sexual slavery, and prostitution, condemning them to a life of nightmares, with 10-15 sold at a time. Enjoying wealth and a luxurious life, built on the ruined lives of countless children, Gisele personifies the worst in human traffickers.
  • El Alacrán ("The Scorpion") is the disgusting head of FARC, who wants to organize a revolution against his country. Scorpion enslaves countless civilians, including children, and then forces them to crush coca leaves to produce cocaine to finance his revolution. A vile pedophile and customer of Rocio, Scorpion turns her into his personal sex slave, and dies when he tries to rape her again. Implied to be ready to execute anyone, including his men, who contracts cholera, El Alacrán, despite his limited time, proves to be the most disgusting and terrible of Giselle's clients.
• Don't Shoot the Message: Real Life experts and officers who combat human trafficking have denounced the film as offering a simplified and exploitative depiction of the issue, and have made the accusation that Ballard's methods actually increase the demand for victims.
• Funny Moments: Tim pretends to be a pedophile in order to trick Ernst into providing him more evidence to aid in finding the traffickers. After Tim drops the act and arrests Ernst, we get this exchange.
  Ernst: I trusted you.
  Tim: Never trust a pedophile.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Unfortunately, for a film dedicated to bringing down pedophiles and sex traffickers, a number of those involved with its creation have since been accused of various sex crimes of their own.
  • Fabian Marta, a man credited with funding the film and "saving it from being buried," is notorious for hosting all ages "Sugar Daddy/Sugar Baby" parties where he groomed young girls and was charged with felony kidnapping a child.
  • One of the film's executive producers, Leo Severino, was similarly accused of grooming some time after the film's release.
  • The real Tim Ballard was accused of committing sexual misconduct with seven women several months after the film's release. He ultimately resigned from his own organization just two weeks before the film released, a decision that was revealed a few months later to have been the result of an internal sexual misconduct investigation.
• Narm Charm: Vampiro saying "You hear that? That's the sound of freedom" is a pretty cheesy Title Drop, especially if heard in isolation, but in the context of the film, it is very cathartic and heartwarming after all the hell the children went through.
• Nightmare Fuel: The film's opening credits combine this with Tear Jerker, as we see numerous children being kidnapped by the sex traffickers. It being seen through the lens of grainy surveillance cameras makes it even more unsettling.
  • Just before that is the dawning panic and horror when Roberto returns to pick up his children and finds that the apartment he dropped them off at is completely empty, with no sign that his kids were ever there and no indication of where they'd been taken to.
  • While the situations of all the children in this movie are horrifying special mention should go to what happens to poor Rocio. She's taken from her father and separated from her brother to ultimately be sold off to a dangerous pedophile that forces her to perform manual labor and is implied to rape her repeatedly. Even worse, she's kept far out in the jungle, isolated away from any kind of civilization and has next to zero hope of ever escaping. If not for Tim she probably would have either eventually been killed by the FARC in one way or another or driven to take her own life in despair. Not helping is how incredibly close Tim came to being forced to abandon her due to lack of support, lack of funds or even simple government obstruction and apathy.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: It has become more or less impossible to discuss this movie without getting into any sort of heated debate, be it political, or how many crimes those attached to it have become guilty of.
• Padding: The scene where the FARC sing and play guitar in front of a campfire goes on for way too long and adds nothing to the film's plot.
• Realism-Induced Horror: The whole movie could be this, as even if a lot of it is made up, they deal with very realistic issues in the world: human trafficking, child pornography industry, and rebel groups in dangerous ungoverned areas. The scariest part though is Giselle, who is apparently a close friend of Rocio's dad and pretends to be a talent agent promising her potential for a career. She tells her father she'll be returned by the end of the day, only for her to be gone forever. This is not only a common practice for human traffickers, but a similar thing happened in the notorious case of Jessyca Mullenberg.
• Squick: The scene where a drunk client is in the room with Rocío and closes the curtain is nothing short of nauseating.
• Tainted by the Preview: The film drew controversy from comments Tim Ballard and the actor who played him, Jim Caviezel, made while promoting the film, in which they expressed their beliefs in baseless conspiracy theories from the QAnon movement, including the belief that child traffickers drain children's blood to obtain "adrenochrome", causing concern among audiences who are against said theories spreading. More than one review had to clarify that at no moment the film actually features any QAnon-related claims. The film's director, Alejandro Monteverde, has gone on record as to saying that the film was meant to be apolitical and was disappointed that the film was being co-opted by the far-right.

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