“Sound of Freedom” is an American crime-thriller movie, released in 2023, based on a true incident. The movie is directed by Alejandro Monteverde. The movie features Jim Caviezel as Tim Ballard, Bill Camp as Vampiro, Mira Sorvino as Catherine Ballard, Javier Godino as Jorge, Eduardo Verástegui as Paulo Delgado, and Yessica Borroto as Giselle, among many others. This movie, ‘Sound of Freedom’ is based on the story of Tim Ballard, who successfully rescues children from child traffickers through a far-off operation.
Introduction to the movie Sound of Freedom
The movie ‘Sound of Freedom’, begins with a former beauty pageant winner, Giselle, meeting a lower-middle-class person, Roberto Aguilar, in his apartment. Roberto has two young children, Rocío Aguilar, his daughter, and Miguel Aguilar, his son, and Giselle approaches him about offering a modeling contract for both of them. She assures Roberto of a wonderful career for both his beautiful children and tells him to bring both of them for an annual audition to the address in Honduras given to him.
Roberto drops both his children at the address, while Giselle directs him to fetch them again in the evening from the same place. When Roberto reaches the place, he is unable to find his children there. The movie reveals here that the children are picked up by the child traffickers to be sold as slaves.
Tim Ballard a Special agent, appears on the scene
Tim Ballard is a special agent for Homeland Security Investigations in California, whose job is to track down the missing kids from their homes and arrest the traffickers. Tim and his colleague, Chris, are both after the traffickers, but the job is taking a heavy toll on their lives. They both discuss that the problem is huge and even after arresting so many pedophiles in their careers, they are not able to bring back the missing kids.
Chris even decides to leave the job because it is too stressful for them. Tim tells him that most of the kids are taken away from the US and sold in different parts of the world. He gets upset by the words of Chris that they are not able to bring the missing kids back. Soon after arresting one pedophile, Oshinsky, and searching his place, he finds that many children are turning up being sold as slaves. He knows the problem is huge, as the entire gang of child traffickers is turning it into a business module, though unorganized.
Tim starts to bust the gang of child traffickers
Tim decides to befriend the pedophile whom he has arrested and is able to convince him that he is a pedophile like him only and interested in kids. He takes him out of the confined cell frequently and chats with him regularly. Here his boss, asks him about the proceedings, but Tim asks for a week’s time which his boss grants.
Tim is able to convince Oshinsky that he is genuine and cares about him. Tim sets Oshinsky free and, as a return favor, asks for a kid from him. Oshinsky is in touch with a guy, Earl Buchanan, who has bought Miguel Aguilar, the little kid who is shown at the start of the movie.
Tim gets his first success in rescuing Miguel
While outside, Oshinsky shows Tim Miguel’s photo and tells him that his name is ‘Teddy Bear’. He informs Tim that Miguel shall be handed over to him the next day for the whole weekend, as per Tim’s desire, as he has fixed a meeting with Earl Buchanan. After getting the details from Oshinsky, Tim gets him arrested formally by the police for child trafficking. At the US-Mexico border, Tim confronts Earl Buchanan, who is with Miguel in the car, at the toll. He gets Earl arrested by local police after identifying his documents and, therefore, gets Miguel rescued.
Miguel is very afraid and traumatized, but Tim comforts him. After Miguel is comfortable with Tim, he formally introduces himself to Miguel and tells him that he has a son of his age, after hearing from Miguel that he is eight years old.
Miguel reveals his ordeal to Tim
Further, in the movie, Sound of Freedom, Miguel is shown revealing how he and his sister were taken to a beach on the pretext of a photo shoot and finally smuggled out of the country through a transport ship by Giselle, her partner, and other men.
Miguel was finally sold by Earl to a lady, with whom Miguel had stayed for quite some time. Miguel shows Saint Timothy’s locket to Tim and pleads to rescue his sister. When asked about her whereabouts, Miguel replies that he has no clue.
Finally, Tim arranges Miguel’s return to his father, who is very disturbed by the kidnapping of his kids. When Miguel was about to be sold to Earl Buchanan, his sister Rocío tied Saint Timothly’s locket given by her father to Miguel’s neck and told Miguel that this would protect him and he should not lose it. Miguel gives the locket to Tim and hugs him as a mark of thanks for rescuing him.
Through Earl, Tim gets some clues, and he starts to work on them. Here, Rocio is being sold to other men, who use and abuse her. Tim reaches out to his boss and asks him to help him get Miguel’s sister, Rocio, back. His boss reluctantly gives him permission and a little grant from the funds for the operation to look for Rocio.
Tim travels to Columbia for the rescue mission
The movie, Sound of Freedom, further shows that Tim lands in Cartagena, Columbia, in search of Rocio and meets a local police officer, Jorge, who helps him search for Rocio. Jorge gets the lead that a rich person, Vampiro, a former cartel accountant, buys children from different people and sets them free. Tim also gets to know that Vampiro operates from a club, so both Tim and Jorge go to meet him. Vampiero learns about Tim’s good intentions and decides to help him. He tells Tim that Rocio may be anywhere in the world, like Moscow, Bangkok, or LA, as these people have international connections. He also has some information about Giselle, who kidnaps children in groups and sends them to Central America so that she doesn’t have to deal with the Columbian police. This is the basic theme of the movie, Sound of Freedom, which shows the trafficking of children.
Tim starts to work out a plan with Vampiro
Tim now wants to rescue other children too, along with Rocio. They learn of a sex club in Thailand that was shut down recently. Tim discusses with Vampiro setting up such a club in Columbia and luring Giselle to come there, along with other children. Having certain connections with these people, Vampiro sets up a meeting with one such middleman and arranges a meeting between him and Tim, who pretends to be a rich man, intending to set up a huge club. Together, Tim and Vampiro make the middleman agree to help them, along with other people in the trade, as he can’t arrange such a huge number of under-aged children.
Here, Tim’s boss gets angry at him for not getting anything in his hands or any leads. Besides, he tells Tim that he has no authority to carry out such an operation on foreign soil. He orders Tim to abandon the operation and come back to work. But his wife supports Tim and tells him to resign and continue the operation. Tim’s boss after coming to know about Tim’s decision to quit, decides to help him. He tries to persuade the US embassy in Columbia to help Tim, in whatever way they can.
Another rich person Paulo Delgado joins Tim
A rich local, Paulo Delgado, is approached by Tim to help them find Rocio, who is reluctant at first to help them, but after Tim sends him the missing girl’s photo, he believes in the cause of rescuing her. A meeting is set in Columbia with the middle man and Giselle after rehearsing the act to sound legitimate. They work towards setting up a location where they can pretend to start this club on an island.
The story of the movie, Sound of Freedom, moves ahead, showing Vampiro and Tim acting as the sex traffickers, and they lay a trap to make the middleman believe that they are serious about the club project. The middle man has connections with Giselle, and she also gets to know about the proposed opening of the sex club. Tim and the team tell them to provide 50–60 kids for the club and that they should bring them to the island.
The first raid takes place and some kids rescued
The kids are brought by Gissele and her gang to the island to show them to Tim. The local police raid the island and rescue the kids, but Rocio is not in the group. The Sound of Freedom is still far away from her.
They learn from the apprehended culprits that Rocio was sold to a rebel group deep inside Columbia, and the group leader of the rebels has taken Rocio into his territory in the jungles. The area is inaccessible for the government, and the police, along with the army men too, don’t go into that area. Jorge, the local police officer, suggests Tim forget the girl, as it is almost impossible for them to get her back. The entire area is located deep into the forests of Columbia, which are ruled by the rebels there and is heavily fortified.
Vampiro suggests that they can sneak themselves into that area by pretending to be doctors who are on a vaccination mission to eradicate malaria. They make the arrangements, and Jorge helps create their fake IDs, which can help them introduce themselves as real doctors on medical missions. Jorge tells Tim that he can only accompany them up to the boundary of the river, and beyond that, Tim has to find a way to go deep inside.
Tim and Vampiro set off on their final mission in Sound of Freedom
Tim and Vampiro set off towards the deep forests on a boat, with the medical equipment as a disguise. The police officer Jorge drops them at the riverfront and provides Tim with a gun for protection. Tim and Vampiro sit on the boat and march towards the deep end of the forest. Soon, some men on other boats catch them and ask for their credentials.
Tim and Vampiro succeed in making them believe that they are doctors and have come for a vaccination drive in the forest area to stop the spread of malaria. These men only allow Tim to come with them into the forest, but only in their boat. Tim reaches the spot, which is an area cut off from the main world Tim sees slaves working there, under the watch of the armed rebels. Tim meets the leader of the rebels, named El Alacrán, and tells him that he needs to identify the sick people so that the epidemic does not spread in the entire area.
Finally, Tim gets to see Rocio, who is still to hear the Sound of Freedom
The movie, Sound of Freedom, shows us that while looking for Rocio in his disguise as a doctor, Tim gets to know that Rocio is also there and is the personal sex slave of the rebel leader. Rocio works there in the cocaine fields and is required to mash the coca leaves for cocaine production. Waiting for the appropriate moment, when the gang leader is busy in music with his gang, Tim finds the place where Rocio is sleeping.
He takes Rocio into confidence and tells her that he has come to liberate her. Soon, El Alacrán comes to the place where Tim and he have a hand-to-hand fight, while his gang members are outside busy singing and playing music. Tim renders him unconscious and hides his body nearby while rushing outside with Rocio to escape.
Tim rescues Rocio and she finally hears the Sound of Freedom
The gang members get to know of this and rush towards the river. Tim, who also has Rocio with him, starts the boat and drives as fast as he can while the rebels are after them. He reaches the spot where Vampiro and the police officer are waiting in the van as they receive the tracking signals from Tim’s device. They all escape in the van while the rebels spray bullets on them from the back. Ultimately, they are out of their reach and are able to get out of the place and reach their destination. Rocio is united with her father and her brother. Tye movie, Sound of Freedom tells tyhe story in a very passionate and delicate manner which comes to a happy ending.
Post Script: This movie, Sound of Freedom, is a true story, and in the end, it is revealed that Tim was able to rescue 120 children and a dozen child traffickers at the time he left Columbia. He credited the entire mission to his wife Catherine who, as per him, inspired him to work for the rescue of the kids. After Tim’s testimony about the Columbia operation, the United States Congress passed legislation about increasing international cooperation in the trafficking of children all over the world. The Sound of Freedom is a remarkable movie about the trafficking of humans and the children.
