Sound of Freedom (2023)

I'd like to reply properly, but will observe this website's guidelines and say it's best to stop at this point.

Hard to talk about some films due to their political nature, for sure. Or if you instead just mean you want to call me a bad name and decided against it, feel free. I can take it, and I respect your opinions.

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Ha, no nothing like that. Just more along the lines that this film takes on politically (according to that review). Propaganda is everywhere but some is much more dangerous than others.

Sure are a lot of people talking about how they're not talking in this thread. It's like that game kids play on road trips on the back bench of the car or van -- "I'm not touching you."



Sure are a lot of people commenting that content of this film is too disturbing even though "Horrorcrammers" is one of the most popular threads on the site. Apparently, the average MoFo can watch I Spit on Your Grave and A Serbian Film without trauma, but this film gets into content that's just too disturbing. Sure....



The film is a high voltage line, electrically charged, but threatening to unleash deadly energy. We are drawn to the controversy, but it is just too charged for us to discharge its energy civilly. The desire to weigh in is there, but we also know that there will be a snapping and popping sound when we touch the third-rail.



The play Oleanna (David Mammet, 1992) had the same effect. People left that play divided and upset. Half the audience saw a lecherous creep. The other half saw a manipulative emotional predator playing the victim.



Bamboozled (Spike Lee, 2000) had the same effect. Half the audience was offended by what seemed to be an overwrought mischaracterization of race relations in America. The other half appreciated what they saw as a biting satire.


The innovation with our modern era is that people who have not even seen this film (the content, after all, is just too disturbing) are divided about it, because we're prepackaged into tribes. We can reach for a review from a person in our tribe to "debunk" a film that is certainly not worth watching. One screen. Two movies. And we're sure of what we will see before the bulb is even struck and the image begins to flicker.



We've moved from "this is why we can't have nice things" (i.e., mature discussions of controversial issues) to "this is why we can't have THINGS" (i.e., discussion of controversial topics). And where reason is silent, force is waiting to fill the vacuum.

On that...

The main reason I haven't commented on the film (much), is that I haven't seen it. The info I do have about it came from a family member that went to see it in the theater. Perhaps once I watch it myself, I will have more to share...

The content doesn't look too disturbing for me in the slightest. I just this minute finished watching 'Love according to Dalva'. That's about as bleak as it gets!

The Sound of Freedom just looks a bit shit to be honest. And a bit too over the line in terms of political motivation.

I don’t think it has anything to do with it being too “disturbing” in regards to its subject matter, so much as it’s obvious a discussion on it will devolve into a political debate. And we all know where that leads.

And let’s be honest, you’re seemingly trying to slip a political debate through the back door.

I may see this at some point. Why not, right? It’s just not a priority.

The movie looks like shit. When even the trailer makes a film look flat and obvious and riddled with cliche, that isn't a good sign. That's maybe why people don't give a **** about this beyond the very specific audience it is attempting to court.


It's also not encouraging when any film has an overt political agenda, and that agenda appears to be the only reason the film even exists. This would include the left wings hippy dippy 'everyone is wonderful' Utopian bullshit, or the rights take that Democrat's are a bunch of pedophiles (even though one of these is significantly grosser and more pathetic than the other....you can choose for yourself which one is which).

Well, I would like to observe the amazing political "electrical charge" associated with this film without weighing in on the question of who is right or wrong or good or bad or what nefarious or virtuous agenda is afoot. In the words of Buffalo Springfield, "There's something happenin' here." It is odd, for example, to hear so many people here ranting about how much they don't care and how much they're not interested.

As this is a phenomenon happening with greater frequency in film (i.e., the cultural prejudgment of movies along political lines), it is interesting to note how severe it is in this case. And we can do that without talking about the politics of the film, per se.

I watched Sound of Freedom because I wanted to see just how many crazy cards would be played, and if it would have any cinematic standards. The crazy part was mostly injected into some of the insane numbers and figures it purported to be true (with absolutely no mention of where these numbers were sourced from.) Standards-wise, it was painfully mediocre - or slightly under that line. Every time I heard "GOD's children are not for sale!" I became that little bit more sure that this will be a future Reefer Madness.

If not mentioned already, "THE GREAT (FAKE) CHILD-SEX-TRAFFICKING EPIDEMIC" is a really good story by Kaitlyn Tiffany at the Atlantic. It talks about Tim Ballard, but was written before Sound of Freedom came out.

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Worldwide Statistics
With an estimated 27.6 million victims worldwide at any given time, human traffickers prey on people of all ages, backgrounds, and nationalities, exploiting them for their own profit.

National Human Trafficking Statistics
24.9 million people are victims of forced labor. (ILO, 2017)
16 million people are trafficked for forced labor in the private economy. (Private economy includes: private individuals, groups, or companies in all sectors except the commercial sex industry). (ILO, 2017)
4.8 million people are trafficked for forced sexual exploitation. (ILO, 2017)
4.1 million people are trafficked for forced labor in state-imposed forced labor.It is estimated that 20.9 million people are trafficked worldwide. (ILO, 2017)

Prosecutions
A total of 2,198 persons were referred to U.S. Attorneys for human trafficking offenses in fiscal year 2020, a 62% increase from the 1,360 persons referred in 2011.
The number of persons prosecuted for human trafficking increased from 729 in 2011 to 1,343 in 2020, an 84% increase.

Calls to Hotlines
In 2021, 10,359 situations of human trafficking were reported to the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline involving 16,554 individual victims. Shocking as these numbers are, they are likely only a fraction of the actual problem.

(Other) Human Trafficking Statistics
A victim of sex trafficking is, on average, raped 6000 times.

In 2019, one in six children reported missing in the U.S. was likely a victim of sex trafficking and most were in the welfare system when they disappeared.

The average victim of sex trafficking has a life expectancy of 7 years.

Sex Trafficking accounts for 77% of human trafficking cases.

California and Texas consistently have the highest numbers for reports of Human Trafficking Cases.

The odds of escaping a human trafficking situation are 1%.

95% of girls born in a red light district will be sex trafficked, and die in captivity.

Out of 40 million slaves in the world, 1 in 4 of those is a child.

Are you sure this is "Reefer Madness"?

As everyone knows, you've got to shower with a hero to generate his superpowers.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...nt-allegations


I'm just going to go ahead and assume a whole lot of this guys champions aren't going to give two shits about this.

Wasn't that part of the plot of Superman II (1980)?
(Or, more accurately, you have to be outside his shower while he showers to lose your superpowers.)

This is just an aside, but our first floor shower is just a shower stall (no bath tub) and at one point I noticed it's shaped exactly like Superman's chest emblem - you can tell by looking at the floor - it's the same exact shape - if it wasn't a shower floor I'd be tempted to paint a big red "S" inside it! I can never take a shower now without remembering the de-powering / powering scenes from Superman II.

This is very unfortunate, but also raises more questions about the movie itself. Is it possible to still appreciate it as standalone art and gauge the message it's trying to put out, or does the real Tim Ballard's shady actions delute and diminish the meaning of the work overall?

It hasn't played in Swedish theaters here and I don't know if/when I plan to see it, but I also feel bad for the director whose film is being hurt even further by the main lead Jim Caviezel essentially betraying his trust by continuing to link the movie to QAnon that hurt its reputation to begin with.

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I think it's entirely fair to still consider it's validity as a piece of art, regardless of what this guy did or didn't do, or even if I think some of the politics behind it's making are suspect.


Not that I'm hearing many people rave too much about that element though. But I'm sure some will just chalk that up to the nefarious media bias at work again, and not the fact that it looks like garbage.

Yep.

Finally! A movie worth talking about.

Strange, the film was, at first, "too disturbing" for most folks 'round these parts. Now, it's just Reefer Madness. Curious.

The film, criticized because sources aren't cited to establish the seriousness of the problem, apparently cannot be saved even if sources are provided, because the "power of yep." Curiouser.

The film disbelieved for only making accusations now dismissed out of hand because Ballard has been accused. Here I thought we demanded sterner stuff than allegations. And even if he is a creep, would this mean the problem described in the film is not a problem? Curiouser and curiouser.

Dude, I speak for myself. Don't take what I say and incorporate it.

I'm just cataloguing the many odd responses from the grumbling gallery. So many odd comments about what is probably just a terrible action film.



Also, "the posts of Corax are not for sale," so I cannot have you tell me how to post.