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Thursday, January 4, 2024

SOUND OF FREEDOM (2023)

Damning with faint praise as ‘largely adequate’ pretty much covers this one.  A big screen variant of one of those CBS crime procedurals, more 2-part Navy Seal than CSI or NBC LAW & ORDER (though LAW & ORDER: Honduras has a ring to it).  Somehow or other, this by-the-numbers Sex-Trafficking thriller: YA edition, caught right-wing/evangelical favor to become a ‘cœur-less’ cri-de-cœur on what a hard-nosed vigilante could single-handedly accomplish against the odds, sabotaging international pimp syndicates once he dropped his uniform & assorted rules-of-engagement to fight dirty and win.  Jim Caviezel, all squint & raspy whisper, is our globe-trotting avenger, sick of hitting a wall against the sheer number of monetizing deviants.  So it's off to Central America where the big con he pulls saves scores of underage victims and takes down dozens of profiteers, but misses the one lost girl he most wanted to save.  So tack on another act with an Amazonian Heart-of-Darkness journey into rebel no-man’s-land where he poses as inoculating U.N. doctor to find her.*  Opening on the 4th of July (I kid you not) for that extra patriotic flavor, the film & target audience, seemingly unaware that what was once called ‘the White Slave Trade,’ standard subject matter since silent days, this based-on-a-true-story update is nothing new.  Though sub-par acting, dialogue, dubbing, cliché jungle settings & misty mood cinematography always a downer.  Suspense and tear-free, the film as anodyne as they come.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *God help the next visit of actual U.N. doctors to the area.  Imagine the welcome they’ll get based on this ‘true story.’

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Ironic to hear this film’s target audience cheering as millions are spent to save a single child but balking at any foreign aid program that might help thousands.

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