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Timothy Ballard is a former DHS agent who, in 2013, left his role fighting criminal child exploitation and founded Operation Underground Railroad, or OUR. It's a parapolice organization which operates internationally, infiltrating child trafficking rings, identifying ring leaders, working with local law enforcement to arrest the leaders, and providing support to the victims after they are rescued. [1] I have not delved deeply into the history or workings of the group, so their actual effectiveness is a mystery to me, but they boast some impressive sounding results; a blog post from yesterday claims 51 survivors of an international sex ring saved and 22 suspects apprehended in "a joint effort by the Hellenic Police, the Spanish National Police, INTERPOL, O.U.R., A21, and Homeland Security Investigations." [2] It sounds very impressive, uplifting, and even badass. It's the kind of thing Hollywood would love to make a movie about - and they did.
In 2015, director Alejandro Monteverde and a production company approached Ballard to make a movie documenting his exploits. Ballard had been approached many times before by for movie deals but had turned them all down. This time, Monteverde's work was able to impress Ballard (and his wife) enough to convince him to sign on to a movie deal. Ballard was extensively interviewed, a script was written, and filming started in the summer of 2018. Interestingly, Ballard requested that actor Jim Caviezel portray him - Caviezel notably portrayed Jesus (yes that one) in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, though Ballard cited Caviezel's performance in The Count of Monte Cristo as the reason for his request. The film was completed that year and Fox was signed on to distribute the film under the name The Sound of Freedom. [3]
Fox was not around long enough to complete the deal. They were acquired by Disney, who shelved the movie (Disney later claimed they had no knowledge of the movie, which is plausible given the enormity of both Disney and the former Fox). It sat in limbo until earlier this year, when the filmmakers bought back the rights to the movie and approached Angel Studios for distribution. Angel Studios is an interesting company; they are entirely supported by equity crowdfunding, in which small investors provide funding in exchange for securities. As the name might suggest they are heavily Christian focused, with one of their largest previous projects being The Chosen, a dramatic television retelling of the life of Jesus Christ. They implement their crowdfunding model by presenting their investors with several options for new projects and ask them to vote for which ones they would like to see. Reportedly, The Sound of Freedom reached a critical threshold of votes within days, the release was greenlit, and the movie hit theaters on July 4, 2023. It instantly became a hit, and a target for hits.
If you have heard about this movie before now, it was probably in the context of controversy. Lefty media outlets have been dogpiling it, with Rolling Stone calling it "a Superhero Movie for Dads With Brainworms"[5] and a CBC Radio columnist saying it was "a dog whistle for xenophobic Pro-Trump, Pro-Life types".[6] Criticism of the movie itself is weak, with the arguments boiling down to "it's not realistic" and "the plot doesn't always make sense", things that could be leveled at any summer blockbuster. External to the film, they criticize Caviezel and his penchant for QAnon conspiracy theories, but never mention the Mexican native director, whose father and brother were kidnapped and killed by a cartel.[7] What many have been focusing on is these outlets' attempts to seemingly pull the rug out from under the whole movie by downplaying child trafficking as a real world issue, trotting out 'experts' to point out how the depiction is 'dangerous' because it sets 'unrealistic expectations' and generally setting the tone that trafficking isn't really a thing people should be worried about.
This has set them up for the obvious counter from the Right: why are you so mad about a movie where a guy saves children? Child trafficking is bad... right? These commenters point out how outlets like Rolling Stone defended Cuties (the infamous Netflix movie about pubescent girls dancing in modern sexually charged style) and didn't seem to have a problem with Taken, the 2008 movie with an obviously exaggerated human trafficking plot. But that was a decade and a half ago, and we know why this is happening now: it's culture war, pure and simple. While Righties are accusing the Lefties of covering up for their corrupt pedo elites, I theorized this might be legacy media feeling threatened by upstart conservative alternatives, but after researching I don't think there's much more to this than "Red Tribe likes this, so it must be bad". Or perhaps I am not blackpilled enough yet to believe that the slope is so slippery that pedophiles are already being introduced into the pantheon of Letter People.
Other titbits I want to mention:
[1] https://ourrescue.org/ [2] https://ourrescue.org/blog/51-survivors-of-human-trafficking-freed-in-greece [3] https://www.deseret.com/2018/6/4/20646317/actor-jim-caviezel-set-to-play-second-most-important-role-in-o-u-r-story-the-sound-of-freedom [4] https://variety.com/2023/film/box-office/sound-of-freedom-box-office-success-1235664837/ [5] https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/sound-of-freedom-jim-caviezel-child-trafficking-qanon-movie-1234783837/ [6] https://twitter.com/Harry__Faulkner/status/1679207525495844865 [7] https://people.com/crime/ali-landrys-father-in-law-and-brother-in-law-found-dead-in-mexico/
Disney's PR team is very very good at manipulating entertainment reporters and online forums. They no how to kick up a mob to attack a competing movie.
Reviewing films is actually quite hard. You get to watch them once and you need to come out with some kind of take based on your notes. You need to do this with multiple movies. Often they are watched without much of a break.
So there's plenty of room for a friendly PR person to offer some notes about other studios movies that are easy to string into an article.
My take is that Disney is upset about TSOF embarrassing the new Indiana Jones movie and in response they are kicking up a culture war storm. A lot of reporters are joining in the gang pile because it's fun and easy.
Beyond that, a lot of people in DC at places like the State Department see the cartels as useful. The CIA has most likely been co-ordinating & manipulating them quite a bit over the years.
Movies that paint the cartels as scary badasses who are just trying to make money getting cocaine to consenting adults are OK.
Movies that point to child exploitation or fentanyl deaths in the US make the CIA look bad by association, so they are attacked.
Could you provide some supporting evidence for why you believe this movie's criticism is due to separate conspiracies by Disney, the State Department, and the CIA?
How does Disney benefit from attacking a movie that, at the time of the rolling stones article, had earned 25% of what Indiana Jones had done at the domestic box office?
Why would the CIA be particularly troubled by this movie showing the cartels involved in human trafficking, but not others?
Why would the State Department's main lever of shutting a movie down to be releasing negative critical reviews after release, as opposed to a myriad of powers it could presumably exercise for a movie by a former DHS employee that was partially filmed in California?
The State Department and the CIA aren't really separable in this context, CIA agents use State Department covers at embassies and they coordinate with State Department staff.
It isn't some formal policy, it's the DC dinner party circuit. DOS/CIA employees have been dropping sly hints about using the cartels to look cool at dinner parties for years. A movie comes out about how their cartel friends are sexually exploiting children. They respond by going on a tear to any reporter who will listen about this evil Q-Anon conspiracy movie.
The movie you linked to doesn't seem to involve the Latin American cartels and only made $20k at the box office, so I imagine there wasn't much discussion.
DHS isn't one of the "cool" agencies. ICE agents don't get invited to the good parties to tell stories.
Disney using their PR staff and entertainment reporter contacts to attack their competitors hardly seems like some far flung conspiracy I need to prove. SOF's success is an embarrassment not just for Disney but for all of the big distributors. The number 2 film for July 14th weekend is distributed by Angel Studios. That undercuts the perceived power of the major distributors.
However Angel Studios lacks the skills and connections to defend the movie.
Arguing about revenue at the time of the article isn't a good metric. Disney has people monitoring other movies and using various metrics to predict their success.
Disney had a whole lot invested in Indy 5. Wikipedia lists it as the 13th most expensive film ever made and there are rumours that Kathleen Kennedy has been playing with the books because the real cost is even higher. It's the first LucasFilm release since Rise of Skywalker in 2019. It was expected to gross over $1B.
And it came in behind Sound of Freedom in it's third week at the box office.
Disney is struggling. They may have to fire Kennedy over that.
Disney attacking the movie out of anger and desperation, not because it's an effective strategy.
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