Not long ago, a guy I know (his late spouse was a resident in the same memory care facility as mine) mentioned seeing the movie ‘Sound of Freedom.’ He said it was really good. Being clueless about so many things, I mentioned I hadn’t heard of it. He went on to say it was about human trafficking of children and assured the rest of us that they had avoided going overboard with graphic scenes. I thought, ‘hey, this is my kind of movie.’ I love serious movies about serious topics, especially if truth and justice triumphs in the end. Hey, I can cry at sappy movie moments with the best of them.

Before seeing the flic, I ran across a couple of news items talking about how controversial this movie was. Admittedly, I didn’t look for many such stories about the film, since I had already decided to see it. Still, it seemmed that the only substantive criticism focused on the fact that most kids caught up in this horror were kidnapped (as happens in the film) when, in reality, most are sold into slavery by people they know. I would presume this happens when family members are desperate or overly greedy. That struck me as a non-issue. Who cares how they got there. It really should be abut the vicitms no matter how they wound up in a living Hell (though I can see some benefit to having some data on this issue when crafting solutions). Still, this made me wonder. What’s going on?

At the end of the flic, more intrigue. There was a message from the star actor, Jim Caviezel. He asked the audience to spread the word since they didn’t have a big budget for marketing as most A-List movies have. Even more odd, it took some 5 years from completing filming to getting it released, and then only after many battles and overcoming significant odds. They even had an icon on the screen that you could scan and buy tickets for others to see the movie who might not be able to afford the cost of a ticket. Now, that was a first for me. By this point, I’m really wondering … what the f$#k is kerfuffle about!

So, when I got home, back to Google it was for me. It turns out that the movie, and the star, have divided the country like so much in our contemporary political world. Jim Caviezel is known for being a very devote Catholic and for having hard right-wing views, apparently bordering on the extreme at times. One of his previous movies was about the life of Christ (or the Crucifiction at least) where he played, guess who, Jesus himself. (They tried to cast me as Satan but I was otherwise engaged.)

Apparently, many on the right including Satan hmself (Donald Trump) endorsed the film, a fact that would ordinarily send me rushing to the nearest bathroom to vomit up lunch. Perhaps most importantly, the producers could not get the damn thing released since none of the major distributors (no major studio nor NETFLIX nor AMAZON) would touch it. They SAID they thought it would be a money loser.

Can you believe the entertainment industry brainiacs were wrong … again! It cost about $15 million to make (it strikes me that many actors waived their usual fees or agreed to a percentage of net profits). Hey, you can’t make a Super Bowl commercial for $15 mil. Those who went with a percentage deal (if any) lucked out. To date, it has earned ten times that amount, over $150 million and is only now being set for international distribution. The revenues have blown past several contemporaneous Hollywood releases with huge marketing pushes.

[Side note: The producers wanted a knpwn actor, Donald Sutherland, for a low-budget independent film titled Animal House. They hoped he would take a percentage of the profits deal as opposed to cash on the barrel head. He turned down the percentage offer thinking this turkey of a flic would never fly. WRONG! Animal House went on to make hundreds of millions (certainly in today’s dollars). Donald would have been a very rich man.]

But Hollywood big-wigs getting it wrong borders on the cliche-ish. What really bothers me is what the kerfuffle about this movie says about our society. I cannot escape the feeling that many attacked the project, or ignored its potential, simply because of the politics of those behind it. Of course, those conservatives promoting the project also got a little conspirital in their paranoia, as is their wont. Some of them claimed that movie theaters played dirty tricks to hamper ticket sales … like turning off the air-conditioning during showings. I can say with pride that the movie house in that liberal bastion of Madison Wisconsin kept the temp very comfortable, though the showings were oddly timed. Oh well.

Here is my beef! Child human trafficking sucks, period. I don’t care what your politics are. There are some issues we can all agree on. This is not a conservative issue or a liberal issue, this is a basic human issue. This is clearly an issue of right versus wrong. There are moments when we can all walk across the divide to shake hands. Even Newt Gingrich, the Republican father of never compromise with the enemy (Democrats), agreed with Bill Clinton on NAFTA though he twisted himself into knots to defend his one moment of bi-partisanship.

I don”t care who was behind this project. The movie was a powerful indictment of an international tragedy of epic importance. And, it is based on reasonably true events from what I can tell. CIaviezel plays an ex Homeland Security guy who know runs an international child rescue organization and did do what was portrayed in the movie, though perhaps dramatized a bit. Beyond that, this sytemic form of sexual child abuse remains a huge blot on our humanity. It is claimed that child (human) trafficking is a $150 billion dollar a year industry. They further note that there are more enslaved people today in the world than when slavery was legal. I am sure that is in absolute numbers. After all, the world’s population is much larger, so the proportion enslaved may be much less. Still, a shocking reality.

Bottom line … the movie is worth seeing. It is overly melodramatic at times (for my tastes) but I was engrossed throughout. More to the point, the human tragedy it displays is all too real to be ignored. The line that is used several times in the movie is ‘God’s children are not for sale.’ Who cannot agree with that, even if you (like me) do not believe in the conventional notion of a divinity?

In the end, it makes no difference whatsoever whether or not you are a believer in God or a believer in Animism, whether a Democrat or a Republican, whether a conservative or a radical ‘woke’ person … we can all acknowledge and denounce evil when we see it.

My rant for today! Thank you for putting up with me.