This is Pastor Tim’s article which appeared in the Evening Leader on Tuesday, July 11
I am writing this article on July 6. Last night, I went over to New Bremen movie theater to see the movie The Sound of Freedom. I will give you a review of this movie without giving away any spoilers. I want you to go see it. My comment to Susan when the movie ended was “I hope this movie makes $2 billion dollars.” I don’t know if it will get to that number given the limited release, but the movie deserves every good thing said about it.
For those of you who have not heard of this movie, it is the true story of Tim Ballard, a CIA agent who worked in Homeland Security and eventually operated a unit dedicated to arresting pedophiles. From there, Ballard decided crushing pedophile rings was not good enough; he wanted to break children out of that nightmarish life. Along with some support from the people he had worked with during his time with the CIA, they began breaking children out of human trafficking rings.
Let me be as clear as I possibly can be. The very hottest pit in hell is reserved for people who do anything to support this modern slavery. Jesus was never clearer than He was in the Gospel when He warned against harming children (Matthew 18:6). Agent Ballard took this call seriously and in one of the movies most satisfying scenes, Ballard even quotes this scripture.
If you like movies about a main character you can get behind and root for, you will be hard pressed to do better than this movie. When you keep in mind it is based on a true story, it makes it even better. What I need to warn you is that this is not a Hollywood movie. I mean that in two different ways.
The first way is that this is not a typical Hollywood action movie. Yes, there are some incredibly intense sequences, but they are not done in Hollywood style. Meaning that one man doesn’t go in and fight dozens of armed henchmen with his bare hands and gets away in some kind of crazy special effects moment. In this movie, you get the feeling that real people are being threatened and shot at. They are not invincible superheroes; these are real heroes who can and do get hurt.
This is also not like a Hollywood movie because it has no political agenda. Make no mistake, there is an agenda; the agenda is the horror of human trafficking and the child sex trade. This movie exposes crimes against humanity instead of pushing an ideology. If we can’t all get behind protecting children from these degenerates, then we are doomed as a species.
The subject matter is difficult to translate to film because of the graphic nature of the abuse these children endure, but this movie does it very well. Nothing is ever shown and no exploitation of the child actors ever takes place, which I appreciated very much. However, the audience is filled in with a lot of details. You know what is happening and why Ballard is hellbent on stopping it. It makes the main character extremely easy to root for.
This movie is going to spark a conversation that needs to be had. There are absolutely no politics in this movie; this is a movie simply about rescuing children. We need to have more conversations about what else we should do to prevent this kind of horror and atrocity from happening. We can debate what those steps might be, but anything we can do to protect the innocence of every child on earth is a step we need to consider and debate.
What makes Tim Ballard so likable is that he is not interested in conversation; he is interested in saving children. In this movie, he lies, cheats, steals, and physically attacks people to have the chance to save a child. The question that the movie begs of everyone who sees it, what can we do to make this world a safer place for children? Sure, protecting them from the parasites involved in human trafficking is an obvious choice. However, there are plenty of other things much closer to home that children also need protected from, and this movie plants the seeds of those conversations. I got out of the movie about 14 hours ago and I am still thinking about some of the challenging parts.
I am not the only one who was impacted by this movie, the theater last night in New Bremen was packed, barely an empty seat in the house. We sat in the very front row, and I sat next to someone I did not know. I can not remember the last time I went to a completely full movie theater. But I did last night, and it was for a very good cause.
The movie is The Sound of Freedom, and it is worth watching.