With “Barbie” crossing the $1 billion mark, 2023 may one day be called “the summer that saved the movies.”
As of this writing, not only was Mattel’s blockbuster still cruising along in first place, but the season’s other hits — “Oppenheimer,” “Indy 5,” MI:7,” the new “Guardians” and “Spider-Man” — were working toward a boffo $5 or $6 billion cinematic summer.
In the meantime, the quieter, less-heralded and genuinely excellent “Sound of Freedom” remains at a respectable #6 in its fifth week.
I call it the “anti-blockbuster.”
“Sound of Freedom” will never make a billion, but it did surge ahead of “Indiana Jones” on the day it opened (July 4) — and it has, in the interim, handily recouped roughly 12 times its modest budget. What’s more, it did so with an approach that’s remarkably restrained, despite its patently explosive subject matter: child sex-trafficking.
The film concerns real-life activist, author, and freedom-fighter Tim Ballard, who by varying accounts has — through his “Operation Underground Railroad” — rescued dozens, hundreds or perhaps even thousands of children from abuse and exploitation around the globe.
Rather than play up his impressive totals, “Sound” wisely focuses on a pair of siblings who were abducted from their single father in Honduras and farmed off to separate places for sexual sale. Very nicely played by Jim Caviezel, Ballard manages to locate one of the kids — whose odyssey is repulsive, ghastly, and infuriating (sorry, I can’t seem to find a strong enough adjective). That’s a huge victory, requiring all the brain-bending cleverness this Homeland Security officer can muster.
But Ballard can’t get past the image of an empty little bed and a still-grieving father; his quest to rescue the older daughter takes him into labyrinthine Colombian wilderness and a nest of nasty drug lords so paranoid and vicious that you can scarcely believe he survived.
The story is fiercely exciting and suspenseful, though the admirable approach of director Alejandro Monteverde is to downplay everything and keep the graphic content to a bare minimum.
We never see even a hint of the images or activities to which these depraved exploiters are addicted; and the movie also has very little blood or strong language. Nearly all of its gripping emotional undertow is generated by the actors — both the child victims and the adults in silent close-ups, reacting to the horrors they are trying to combat.
Caviezel, who played Jesus in 2004’s “Passion of the Christ,” is beautifully supported by Eduardo Verastegui as a fellow-agent; Mira Sorvino as Ballard’s wife; and veteran character actor Bill Camp as a reformed abuser who is now committed to atoning for his sins with behind-the-scenes rescue work.
The ever-recognizable Camp, whose supporting performances have elevated such films as “Joker,” “Hostiles,” ““Molly’s Game” and “12 Years a Slave,” is perhaps best-known as the custodian who trained Ana Taylor-Joy’s chess-champion in “The Queen’s Gambit.”
There’s a mid-film moment where Camp’s “Vampiro” recounts how God called him out of his depraved lifestyle — and rest assured: if you don’t have someone of Camp’s caliber for a tricky scene like that, the whole film could fumble right then and there. Needless to say, Camp takes it in for a touchdown instead.
The film has generated some controversy, as Ballard was accused of being associated with QAnon, which he has denied. There is nothing in the movie to support that accusation, and in any case: Is this really what we want to discuss when thousands of kids under 10 are being kidnaped and raped around the world?
This film bravely calls attention to abusive sexual exploitation without being abusive, sexual or exploitative.
It’s a lesson Hollywood could take to heart.
