My readers know that several of my novels are set against the background of historical slavery or touch upon the subject. The three-book Heart of the Corsairs series and my Roman era novel Dark Heart all have central and supporting characters who have been or are slaves. My very first novel, Moonstone Obsession, includes a ship owner who describes his horror as a young seaman on a vessel carrying slaves across the Atlantic to the Americas.
What of modern day slavery? I went to see the movie Sound of Freedom at the weekend. It’s about child sex trafficking. It’s not especially graphic in any way – the horrors are inferred most of the time. But it’s not an easy film to watch all the same. Nonetheless I’d encourage everyone to go see it because sometimes we need reminding of what lurks beneath the comfortable lives we lead.
The movie is an action thriller based on a true story. A US Homeland Security Agent arrests a child trafficker carrying a kidnapped eight-year-old boy over the US-Mexico border. The agent gets permission to work with South American authorities to find the boy’s similarly enslaved sister, but is forced to quit his job and go it alone when the budget runs out and US law doesn’t permit his continued mission. The actual agent later testified before the US Congress and laws were changed to allow greater cross-border cooperation.
It’s difficult to find reviews of Sound of Freedom that actually review it. For some reason most media outlets have been going on about the politics they claim are behind the film rather than whether or not it’s a good piece of filmmaking.
Is it? Yes and no. It’s dramatically powerful and compelling; every single actor, child and adult, puts in an emotionally engaging performance; the landscapes and cities are stunningly photographed in both glory and squalor; the music is superb; and it has many moments of action that have you on the edge of your seat as the story wends from major cities deep into South American jungles.
But, after a sharpish beginning, the film suffers from uneven pacing, not helped by using a series of somewhat awkward flashbacks to relate the story of what happened to the boy and his sister between being kidnapped and the boy’s rescue.
It’s puzzling that Sound of Freedom was made five years ago and ultimately had to be bought back from a major studio so it could be released. One would have thought it would be a solid moneymaker over the past few years with the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell in the news.
But what would I know? I was a professional film reviewer back in the days when studios were only interested in releasing movies that made money or won Oscars. Somehow the agenda must be different today.
