Before beginning this review, let me state that you must see Sound of Freedom (2023). It is likely the most important film of the last decade, if not this century, so far. If you’d like to contribute to help others see it in theaters, Angel Studios has a pay-it-forward program. If you are financially strapped but want to see it on the big screen—and, trust me, you want to see it on the big screen—Angel Studios allows you to claim free tickets (well, tickets, other folks have paid for). Lead actor Jim Caviezel compares the film to Harriett Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), which President Lincoln (apocryphally) claimed “started this great war” (the American Civil War) because of the impact it had on the burgeoning anti-slavery movement in the United States. For what it’s worth, I think Caviezel is correct: Sound of Freedom is waking people up to the terrifying realities of child sex trafficking. —TPP
If cinema does one thing well, it is creating an experience for the audience. We’ve grown used to watching big-budget, CGI-infested foolishness that overloads our senses and shuts down our brains—an experience in and of itself—but the real power of film is to make something beyond our personal experience real for us. Sound of Freedom (2023) has that effect in bringing to life the real-world tragedy of human trafficking, specifically child sex trafficking.