Sound of Freedom (2023)

Yeah, for sure. There's no clean lines, unfortunately, so it ultimately relies a lot on people making a good faith effort, rather than (as is often the case) using the inevitable ambiguities as an excuse, something which I've noticed more and more, and will be coming down on more and more, too.

Anyway, appreciate the understanding.

Let's see if we can go back to discussing just the movie, Sound of Freedom. All reports say it's doing pretty darn good ticket sales. It's in less theaters than the Indiana Jones film and is doing better box office.


Questions:
Has anybody see Sound of Freedom? I searched MoFo but couldn't find a review or post from someone who actually had watched it.


If you have seen it, what are your thoughts? I just read the negative reviews for it over at IMDB and surprisingly there wasn't many...and those that did give it a low score still seemed to find the subject matter important and didn't outright hate the film.


Right now it's 8.7 at IMDB but I'm guessing the people who went to watch Sound of Freedom weren't just randomly watching it but knew exactly what the films focus was about. I bet as time goes on and more of the average movie goers see it, those IMDB ratings will drop. But not by all that much, I bet it holds a 7.2-7.5 rating.

Basically, if you're Liberal, you hate this and feel like it's nothing more than a movie geared toward the "Q" Crowd, but it is a real subject and is happening on a daily basis and it's terrible.. I plan on watching this when it comes online.. When I go to the movies, I like going to feel good type of movies and this is definitely not one of them no matter how well made it is..

Does the movie talk about adrenochrome harvesting? Because if it does, this is specifically a Q thing. Because this is not a thing happening in reality. While, conversely, child trafficking is something actually real. And, shock of shocks, liberals do care about this issue.


It's conflating a real issue with made up garbage that people don't like

From what I gather, Jim Caviezel mentioned adrenochroming kids in a promotional interview for the film (I think that that clip was linked in the OP), but that the film itself does not touch on it. IIRC the real person who the film is based on has discussed weird stuff he allegedly saw like blood rituals and organ harvesting.



See below for a discussion of the controversy.







I haven't seen the film, so I can't speak to it's content.



It is noteworthy, however, that the film


was basically made outside "the system'


has found surprising success


has been attacked and defended as something "BIG"


has been attacked and defended in a predictable pattern associated with politics of the outlet (e.g., Rolling Stone hates it, the Daily Wire loves it).

I haven't seen this either, but I'm kind of intrigued by its subject matter. I'm wondering, could this be a case of a bad messenger, Jim Caviezel making the film, but perhaps a worthy message? Perhaps the movie is speaking to something that is important and real and happening, and deeply troubling, child trafficking, but the film is being dismissed because many understandably take issue with some of the outlandish things that he might be saying, both on this and other issues, in other places outside of this specific film, and that that may be obscuring people's receptivity to the message?

It bears mentioning that the person this is based on has been called out for fabricating his achievements, such as rescuing one individual where it came out she had actually freed herself.

I’ll just take this as a typical action film and ignore its politics (depending on how it handles it, like if it brings up adrenochroming) and judge it by those merits.

You might very well be right about Cavielzel being a 'bad messenger' but the film itself is a worthy message and not the same thing as Cavielzel has professed to believing. I don't know of course I haven't seen it but I wouldn't be surprised if you hit the nail on the head...Go see it! and come back to this thread and let us know what you think.

And it turns out the guy in Flamin' Hot had nothing to do with inventing those spicy Cheetos. Where have all our heroes gone?

The downside of the sizzle of "based on a true story," is the sad finding that it is merely, "true that it's a story" as Sheriff Bell put it.

Interestingly enough, when I went and saw MI:7 at the 20 screen cinema I go to last night, Sound of Freedom was on 5 of those screens and full in every theatre shown.. Chances are, this movie most likely cut into MI:7 weekend box office and probably would've made more if it weren't for this movie..

Well, I tend to avoid theaters nowadays, much preferring to either stream via a service such as Amazon, or else simply buy the Blu outright -- being officially Gnarled and Crotchety, I find today's movie-going audiences increasingly boorish and insufferable, chatting loudly and waving their brightly lit phones about as if signaling in descending aircraft -- but I'm definitely intrigued enough to see this once it becomes available via those means.


The reviews I typically trust most (i.e., word of mouth from friends and family members) have ranged from good to near-excellent, thus far; and, these days, anything that isn't another Disney or Marvel dropping is as balm from Gilead, to these tired eyes.

__________________
"If it was priggish for an older generation of reviewers to be ashamed of what they enjoyed and to feel they had to be contemptuous of popular entertainment, it's even more priggish for a new movie generation to be so proud of what they enjoy that they use their education to try to place trash within the acceptable academic tradition." -- Pauline Kael

If you see Sound of Freedom make a post about it, or even a thread. I really want to know what MoFo's are thinking about it.

Myself, I don't think I'll watch it, it does look good but maybe a bit too dark for my taste.

Dude, when are you going to the movies? The number of movies I have seen in which I was nearly the only viewer is phenomenal. Stop going on the opening weekend. Check out off hours. Your movie-going experience will improve exponentially.


The folks who made this movie handled their press very well. They are mentioned on every conservative, right-wing (whatever you want to call them) video on Youtube. And they all say that mainstream Hollywood is a bunch of pedo's who didn't want to fund this movie because of that and that anyone who does not laud this movie is a pedo. It is sort of a reverse Cuties, which was a movie that actually examined a girl reacting to the sexualized nature of girlhood within the West's culture but had been decried as CP. (Im glad to have seen a lot of people defending that movie.) I saw the trailer and it didn't look like my cup of tea. I am not a big action movie watcher or I would report back. And I am definitely not a fan of jingoistic dog whistles i.e. the use of patriotic American music in the trailer. It was tacky. As for the left wing, liberal (whatever you call it) media. I have not seen any of that. I have just heard the right hollaring that being against this movie is being for child trafficking which is tiresome enough.

I find it more likely that the Hollywood establishment doesn't want to "risk" telling a story that is obviously very concerning and interesting to many viewers.Their lack of guts is why they are getting whooped in the box office. They deserve it. It's The Sound of a Butt-whooping.
Maybe Hollywood will wake up and start making films about subjects that concern people. Not that I will hold my breath.

Saw the trailer and it looks terrible. Like, obviously bad. Like a bunch of schmoes who decided they were going to make a big dumb patriotic movie over their summer holiday with a lot of flags waving and children reciting the pledge of Allegiance. A thriller with a bunch of square headed cops slamming down phone receivers with grit teeth and screaming into their styrofoam coffee cups 'the damned dirty kiddy traffickers did it again'. Lots of ex-marines using the word binary over and over again, always incorrectly.


Something like that at least.


And so now that I've seen the trailer, and made up my mind, should I now start writing post after post complaining about the types of people who are rushing out to see this?


That's how this works right?

That's why I quit going to the theater too, that and it took too much time and way too much of my money. Oh and I seldom like new movies anymore anyway, at least the ones that would play in mainstream theaters around me aren't to my liking. I haven't seen a movie in a theater in over a decade.

That is good advice! It's also probably the movie that one goes to see that determines the rowdiness of the audience. A Marvel superhero film isn't going to pull in the most discerning of film buffs.

Hollywood goes for the lowest hanging fruit that will make the most money. Dumping tons of money into a potential flop doesn't appeal to them. The situation might change when the current crop of movie goers grow older and want more serious mature movies... By that I mean the core demographics of movie goers and not every movie goer. It happened in the 1960s when the baby boomers were old enough to have Hollywood target them with movies but young enough that they liked dumb fluff. But when then grew up in the 1970s they then wanted more serious adult themed movies. Thus some of the best Hollywood films were made in the 70s especially in the first half of that decade.

If this had been marketed as Taken Vol. 27, it would have undoubtedly sunk like a stone as an outside movie with a mundane plot about revenge/rescue by another "impossible white man."



Instead, this went a sort of Blair Witch Guerilla route, chumming the waters for a particular audience rather than weakly appealing to the mass audience. Financially, it's smart.



This may be the next phase of evangelical cinema. From goofy "feel good" Godsploitation, to the pointed God's Not Dead (which offers a rather unfriendly depiction of unbelievers), and now we're on to the temporal battlefield; "God's children are not for sale," says our hero.

Hmm, I don't know. We've had Denzel Washington in Man on Fire, and The Equalizer. We've watched Liam Neeson continually having to save abducted people like a never-ending side-quest in a video-game.



The only thing that they shy away from is anything too overtly patriotic and traditional, but even then Top Gun: Maverick happened despite all the whining about jingoism, exceptionalism, and supremacy in a simple film. And the Terminal List and Jack Reacher did happen on TV, so...



I don't think that this film, as an outside film, had much of a chance without an angle. It might have worked as inside film made by the Hollywood machine, but it isn't, and even then, it seems awfully vanilla without the edgy angle of psuedo-activism (Save the world by watching this movie!).

I sometimes like to watch movies that are dark non-fiction or which address various socio-cultural-political issues, mass crimes or injustices...

Beyond Rangoon
Mississippi Burning
Hotel Rwanda
Loving
Philadelphia
The Deer Hunter
The Killing Fields
Platoon
Precious
Midnight Express
United 93
12 Years A Slave
Black Klansman
Hidden Figures
Spotlight
13 Hours
American Sniper,
etc.

(I realize not all of these are non-fiction, but most are based on true-stories or shared experiences.)

This thread is the equivalent of that movie and reading some of these posts must be what sitting through the film is like.

I've seen some of those, really liked them too. I'll highlight those that I've seen in red and bold the ones I really liked/or thought highly of.

Beyond Rangoon
Mississippi Burning
Hotel Rwanda
Loving
Philadelphia
The Deer Hunter
The Killing Fields
Platoon
Precious
Midnight Express
United 93
12 Years A Slave
Black Klansman
Hidden Figures
Spotlight
13 Hours
American Sniper

I wouldn't call of those dark films, I don't remember Hidden Figures being dark more like enlightening. Spotlight dealt with a dark subject but didn't show us the pedophile acts (thank goodness). The one movie in your list I would not want to watch is United 93 I don't want to put my mind into the horrible situation those people found themselves in and the subject matter would make me too angry....However I do love those Airport movie