August 3rd 2023, Review By Law Olmstead
Sound of Freedom by Angel Studios.
Over the years working in the missing persons industry has exposed me to all types of situations regarding child abuse, elder abuse, neglect, trafficking and so much more. You might think with over thirty years, every day, being made aware of some of life’s worst predators and the evil people do to each other, I would be hardened like steel and it’s just another day in the office.
That is certainly not the case.
When I saw the marketing of Sound of Freedom, I was immediately interested in learning more because I honestly have grown wary of television shows and movies depicting missing people or trafficking in general. Most programming is based on producers creative interpretations of events, articles or books on the topic and rarely give true to life storytelling. And in most, there always has to be that happy ending. In real life, there is’t always a happy ending and in many cases we see at the Missing Persons Center, there are no happy endings and some cases never get resolved.
As in all things in life, how you feel about it comes down to how you interpret what you experience and how it changes the way you see the world and your place in it.
Sound of Freedom is one of the only films I have ever seen that gives an insider view of trafficking like never before. You are able to clearly understand, how one family fell prey to traffickers and you’re taken into a journey into a lighter view of the realities of child trafficking. I say lighter because the producers, in the most tasteful of ways, made the scenes appropriate for audiences, so keep in mind, the true reality behind the scenes shot in this film are far worse and horrifying than depicted.
This movie was made with a humanitarian purpose and that is to educate viewers through a heart-wrenching story that will change most people’s opinion of this topic.
Trafficking is not something that only happens to other people, it happens to people everyday, everywhere and there are no boundaries to who and why people get trafficked.
Before you see Sound of Freedom, be prepared to go on a ride of emotions. While I sat in the theater, I could hear the weeping from many people and I can speak for myself, besides sadness or frustration, it made me feel a greater calling to be part of the solution. Be prepared to feel the effects of this film for a few days or more.
In closing, I want to commend the whole production team and the cast of this film for taking time to make this film have meaning and be used as a platform to inform people on the horrors of trafficking.
Lastly, we have to acknowledge this film could never been made without Tim Ballard. He lived this film and it’s based on his true accounts of actual events he has experienced. He risked his career, his family and his life to make a difference, not many people can give that level of commitment to anything and he did it all all costs.
To learn more about Tim Ballard, visit his website at Operation Underground Railroad.
