By: Danusha Goska

Sound of Freedom is an old-fashioned movie-movie. It deploys the features of Golden Age films. It handles a very difficult subject: child sex slavery. Don’t let that difficulty keep you from the theater. Freedom is rated PG-13, the same rating as Barbie. Like the films made under the Production Code, Sound of Freedom’s filmmakers know that the audience does not need to witness graphic horrors to understand that child sex slavery is an atrocity. They also know that when treating atrocity, less is more. They know that “a spoonful of sugar” lets the medicine go down.

Schindler’s List is regarded as a Hollywood breakthrough. It was a lengthy, high-production value film about the Holocaust. For this endeavor, filmmaker Steven Spielberg did not focus on a typical Holocaust victim, a starving, terrified, innocent soul mercilessly murdered by Nazis. Few audiences would want to see such a film. Rather, Spielberg focused on Oskar Schindler, a handsome bon vivant and Nazi party member who becomes a heroic rescuer of Jews. Audiences were ready for that movie, and that movie educated millions about the Holocaust.

Just so, Sound of Freedom is primarily an action-adventure movie. It is a straight-line narrative driven by the agency of a hero the audience can admire. That hero is played by a powerfully charismatic star. Jim Caviezel has received a great amount of grief from the Left ever since he starred as Jesus in Mel Gibson’s 2004 film, The Passion of the Christ. His overt Catholicism, right-wing politics, and refusal to perform sex scenes are frequent targets of criticism.

The first time I saw Jim Caviezel was in Terrence Malick’s 1998 The Thin Red Line. This epic depicts Americans fighting Japanese in World War II’s Pacific theater. Caviezel is Private Witt, an unconventional, and doomed, soldier. “Who is this guy?” was my reaction to Caviezel’s unique screen presence. He radiated innocence, vulnerability, and power. There was an ethereal, other-worldly quality unlike anything I’d seen except maybe for early Garbo, but with Garbo, you know she is acting. With Caviezel, he seemed really to be just being, just bleeding his soul onto the screen as if it were a spiritual emanation.

Garbo was acting, and so is Caviezel. We know that because two years after handing in an unforgettable screen Christ, he played a Satanic figure in the 2006 film Deja Vu. For my money, Caviezel is a more disturbing villain than Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. He really makes my stomach crawl in scenes like this.

I don’t care what Jim Caviezel’s personal politics are. He is a star. He brings powerful charisma to every role he plays. He is the bright light at the center of Sound of Freedom, a dark, necessary film. He makes it possible for comfortable audiences to confront the most vile acts and actors in Sound of Freedom.

Sound of Freedom centers on the efforts of its main character, Tim Ballard (Caviezel), to rescue two sexually enslaved children, Miguel (Lucas Avila) and Rocio (Cristal Aparicio), in South America. Tim is aided by Vampiro (Bill Camp). Vampiro had been involved in the drug trade. One day, to celebrate, he hired a prostitute, assuming that she was “mature” enough to sell herself. He discovered that she was 14. She had been a prostitute since age 6. She had an air of darkness, of sadness, and he realized that he was that darkness. Men like him were the source of this child’s pain, and the pain of millions of others like her. He contemplated suicide; instead, he began to purchase the freedom of child prostitutes. Vampiro describing his journey was one of the most powerful speeches I’ve heard in any movie.

Again, this movie will not rub your nose in agony. It’s an action-adventure movie that involves the viewer in classic motifs of chase and rescue, deception and victory, goods guys versus bad guys. The good guys win, at least in the case of Miguel and Rocio. Caviezel commands the screen, but Lucas Avila, as a child victim, is unforgettable. I want every good thing for that young performer. Bill Camp is terrific as Vampiro. Camp gives the impression that he’s having a great time in his movie, and his brio as a happy warrior willing to risk his life for a good cause adds bounce to the film.

Many years ago, I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal. Nepal is an up and down country, the highest country on earth. Fertile soil is constantly lost to landslides. When I was there, Nepal was one of the poorest countries on earth, unable to feed its own citizens without foreign aid. Even so, I encountered large families. One had thirteen children. One of those children was a boy. Everyone I mention this family to immediately knows which position the boy occupied in the family. He was, of course, the last one born. The family had daughter after daughter, continuously trying to produce a son who would survive to adulthood. The girls were expendable.

Daughters in Nepali families, especially the youngest, were frequently malnourished, a condition made obvious by their swollen stomachs and brittle, straw-colored hair. They often received no medical attention if they got sick. They were more likely to die. If they survived, a common fate was sex slavery. Nepal is a major source of child sex slaves and other enslaved persons. My superiors in Peace Corps somehow never talked about this.

I’m so glad that Jim Caviezel and his partners have made a compelling, box office hit that draws attention to child sex slavery. People who have seen this film will be inspired to donate to agencies addressing the issue. Yes, Sound of Freedom is a controversial film. The controversy does not affect the quality of the film. Just go see it.

(FrontPageMad.com)

Danusha Goska is the author of God Through Binoculars: A Hitchhiker at a Monastery.