Amir Khan, China Writers’ Group member calls BS on new child trafficking film, “Sound of Freedom”
Note before starting: Amir Khan is a qualified film critic, having published books on cinema. I have interviewed him,
He has also contributed several thought-provoking articles,
www.chinarising.puntopress.com/search/?q=amir%20khan
More on Amir here,
Here is Amir’s takedown of “Sound of Freedom”, directed and co-written by Alejandro Monteverde, and starring Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino and Bill Camp…
Did anyone see this movie? It’s so dumb. It’s lost in idealistic nonsense with no material understanding of how capitalism + individual desire underwrites the global child sex trafficking ring. The supers at the end say very solemnly that “The United States is one of the top destinations for human trafficking and is among the largest consumers of child sex.”
Funny because you wouldn’t know this from watching the film. The US government is actually presented as some sort of bastion of justice, as the movie’s American hero (Timothy Ballard/Jim Caviezel) is a scion of (get ready!) The Department of Homeland Security, the outfit that regularly trafficks human souls and keeps them locked up at Guantanamo Bay!
Ballard never attacks the millionaire and billionaire consumers of child pornography; instead we are made to watch him entrap and raid blue collar low class dives (including basically all of Columbia) in his messianic mission to rid the world of child trafficking filth. Ballard never once attempts to use his powers to go after white collar criminals, at least not for the final cut of this film.
The movie’s so called “courage” is just manufactured hype designed to distract away from the Epsteins of the world and those who patron him; instead, the villains are mustachioed Latinos with pot bellies, piercings, and rings who recklessly sing folk tunes to acoustic guitar amidst empty whiskey bottles and cigarette and campfire smoke; this childish portrayal of Columbians (essentially Escobar turned child trafficker instead of usual drug kingpin) allows daring great white knights to sweep onto the scene unbeknownst to save the day! I can’t believe movies like this still get made.
It’s too bad because more attention needs to be drawn to this topic; this is not the film to do it. It looks away instead of looking at. The story progresses via idealistic religious tropes like single acts of conversion, faith, and altruism. None of these things will ever mobilize enough to rid the world of child trafficking. Appeals to individual conscience and invocations of faith only entail endless deferral and are no solution whatsoever. A political hammer must be brought down to smash the evil doers. God has nothing to do with this. This movie, unfortunately, avoids the political by refusing to implicate the political mechanisms that allow child trafficking to proliferate. Its just a few bad Latino apples.
Amir Khan
It’s clear Amir’s very limited mindset is unable to process the multi dimensional aspects of a deep corrupt global problem the movie has brilliantly delivered to the masses.
Exactly. This movie at least gave a voice and shed more light on this issue. The fact that Hollywood and msm was so against this movie shows that it really struck a nerve.
My guess is that Hollywood hates this movie because it gives ammo to all the pro-Trump “seal the border” types; it is hated by Hollywood for the wrong reason.
Agreed, Mr Khan is very wrong on his entire assessment. This film shed a light on a dark subject, yes child trafficking, and satanic deviance happens in his communist utopia as well. So he’s simply being a hateful shortsighted idealouge.
I hope he will be more open minded and realize, freedom to pursue beauty, goodness and truth is the ideal he should support and not a system of slave rule which punishes pursuit of freedom…communism is no savior… only pursuit of beauty goodness and truth, which will lead a true seeker to the divine expression of perfection, aka Jesus Christ… the manifestation of the undeniable archetype and the universe… Blessings Brother 🙏
Funny you mention ideology. Yes, I’m a Communist. You also mention “satanic deviance,” “savior,” “divine expression of perfection,” and of course, Jesus Christ. Who’s the ideologue?
Amir is entitled to his opinion but it is not one I concur with. The film is a sensitive dramatisation highlighting an important topic which I felt did the cause justice.
In my view, it fits a sensitive topic into familiar (conventional, stereotypical) molds and hence doesn’t do the topic justice at all.