Why the digital release of ‘Sound of Freedom’ should be called off

The surprise hit from this summer, which lionized anti-sex trafficking activist Timothy Ballard, has been wildly undercut by claims of sexual misconduct against Ballard himself

Sound of Freedom, which told the purported tale of how Timothy Ballard made himself into the country’s most prominent anti-sex trafficking activist, was a one-of-a-kind box office phenomenon this summer. 

A film shot many years earlier that had its release lost in the shuffle of the Disney/Fox merger, Sound of Freedom was picked up by the Christian indie studio known as Angel Studios. Starring The Passion of the Christ leading man Jim Caviezel, the film told the story of Timothy Ballard, a former government agent who, frustrated that his job wouldn’t allow him to actually go after predators, struck out on his own to go on rescue missions himself, forming an organization called Operation Underground Railroad. 

Through both word of mouth and a campaign that allowed moviegoers to “pay it forward” by buying tickets for others, Sound of Freedom made $184 million at the box office, good for tenth among 2023 films. It also emerged as a culture war cudgel, even screened by Donald Trump at Bedminster. 

Sound of Freedom is set to land online for digital purchase on November 3. I think Angel Studios, its distributor, should pull the film from that release. 

I went to see Sound of Freedom back in July, and found it not quite as offensive as some of its detractors had implied, but not so special either- it resembled an overlong episode of Criminal Minds, albeit one that laid on the messianism and slavery analogies especially thick, up to and including Caviezel recording a mid-credits message comparing his own project to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” I couldn’t imagine even the most smug Hollywood liberal making that sort of claim out loud.

No, it was not an overt QAnon project, mostly because it was shot prior to QAnon becoming a thing, although Caviezel is a vocal Q adherent, and the film clearly did what it could to appeal to those of that ilk. Not every critique of the film turned out to be true — that business about a “major funder” getting arrested for trafficking turned out to refer to one crowdfunding donor, and the “pay it forward” scheme was not fraudulent; a lot of people really did see the film. 

That said, there was a great deal wrong with Sound of Freedom, beyond its status as a mediocre summer movie. It fudged the facts egregiously even from Ballard’s official version, with its daring third-act rescue of a child from a Columbian guerrilla army completely made up out of whole cloth. There have long been questions raised about how, exactly, Ballard does the missions, with actual sex trafficking experts nearly unanimous that daring commando raids aren’t exactly the most effective tactic in ridding the world of such a scourge. 

Beyond all that the film, it was very clear, was almost entirely about Ballard’s self-aggrandizement, and need to portray himself as a hero. He even got Jesus himself to play him. 

Later, an embarrassing conspiracy culture became associated with the film, including those claiming that AMC theaters were actively suppressing it- one that Angel Studios had to deny. Critics who negatively reviewed the film were attacked as probably pedophiles themselves. This sort of conspiracist nonsense didn’t exactly help the film’s fans beat the QAnon accusations. 

Oh, and Tim Ballard himself, the anti-sex trafficking hero, turns out to have been accused by multiple women of pretty terrible sexual misconduct, some of which is alleged to have taken place on his own rescue missions.

And that’s why Sound of Freedom should be pulled from its digital release. To continue to push the film, knowing what we do know, is a terrible act of dishonesty. 

Around the time of the movie’s theatrical release, Ballard separated from OUR for mysterious reasons. A few months later, a group of women who worked for the organization sued Ballard, claiming they were  "subjected to sexual harassment, spiritual manipulation, grooming, and sexual misconduct.” You can read the details here, in reporting by Vice’s Anna Merlan, who has been all over this story from the start. 

 This week, the governor of Utah called for a criminal investigation of Ballard, who has denied the allegations.  

If the allegations against Ballard are true — and they are strong enough that Ballard has been removed as head of Operation Underground Railroad and denounced by the Mormon Church — then the movie depicting him as a near-messianic hero is a fraud. He is not a hero against sexual exploitation, but rather an accused perpetrator of it.

This isn’t a matter of fudging a few details in terms of factual accuracy like movies do all the time- the revelations about Ballard contradict the very idea behind the film. And this isn’t the usual Kevin Spacey/Woody Allen separate-the-art-from-the-artist question, explored so well in Claire Dererer’s recent book “Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma.” The case of Ballard and Sound of Freedom has more in common with that of Bill Cosby, who had long cultivated a persona as a moral leader and center- something the dozens of rape accusations made untenable. I can still watch Annie Hall, but I couldn’t sit through The Cosby Show. 

I do not, to be very clear, want the government to suppress the film, or for third-party distribution channels to block it. I would like to see Angel Studios step up and do this, even though I do not expect them to. This is, after all, their most successful film- and frankly, it’s not clear that their audience cares. 

Yes, I gather there have already been conspiracy theories about this, arguing that Ballard has been framed, or that “they” are out to get him in retaliation to his anti-trafficking work. There’s no evidence of this, and it’s a conspiracy that would, by definition, have to involve numerous former employees of Ballard and the entire leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

If at some point Ballard is definitively cleared of any wrongdoing, by all means, go ahead with the release. But until then, Angel Studios should pull the plug on the digital rollout of the film.