Today, Explained - Sound of Freedom

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

The Wall Street Journal’s John Jurgensen explains how Sound of Freedom, an action-drama about fighting child sex trafficking, beat Tom Cruise and Indiana Jones at the box office. Writer Meg Conley explains the murky truth behind the movie. This episode was produced by Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Michael Raphael with help from Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The biggest movie in the country is Barbie. Hi Barbie! The second biggest movie is Oppenheimer. But have you heard about the third biggest movie in the country? It's not Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible 7 Dead Reckoning Part 1. It's not Harrison Ford and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Part 5. It's an action drama about fighting child sex trafficking called Sound of Freedom.

Does that make you feel? Giving a child his freedom. Felt good. On Today Explained, we're going to figure out how this grim movie you haven't seen a single billboard for is beating Tom Cruise and Indiana Jones at the box office. The all-new FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino is bringing you more action than ever. Want more ways to follow your faves? Check out our new player prop tracking with real-time notifications. Or how about more ways to customize your casino page with our new favorite and recently played games tabs.

And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals. Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. Today, today explained. It's today explained. I'm John Jurgensen, and I'm an entertainment reporter at The Wall Street Journal. We asked John over to tell us about the third biggest movie in the country.

Yeah, this third movie is Sound of Freedom. Hear that? That's the sound of freedom. And, you know, you could call it a dark horse in the box office race this year, except this is a movie that people didn't even see as in the race going into this summer. It just wasn't on most people's radars before it opened and before it did big numbers. It's a crime thriller, kind of an old-fashioned crime thriller about a government agent

whose job is to deal with criminals who traffic in children. For homeland security, you know we can't go off rescuing Honduran kids in Colombia. And, you know, he feels hemmed in by bureaucracy and the restrictions of government work. And it's based on the work of a real organization

and a real person, Tim Ballard. And it's the hero is played by Jim Caviezel, who many know from The Passion of the Christ. Jesus. We know him as Jesus. And certain other things in the culture. He's been kind of a controversial figure in Hollywood because of things that he does in his personal life and things he says in his personal life. We are headed into the storm of all storms.

Yes. The storm is upon us. What did you think of it? Is it good? You saw it twice. So does that mean you'd want to see it a third time? I saw it twice. I think I got it. It's a fine movie. I'm not a film critic. Personally, I'd say it's a little overwrought, and maybe there's not as much action as you might expect

from the way it's framed in movie trailers and things like that. But it's a perfectly capable adult drama that does its job job and it's well made. Maybe more interesting than whether this movie is good or not is its backstory. And you wrote about this for the Wall Street Journal. Where did this movie come from? So the company behind this film is Angel Studios. And this is a Utah-based content company run by a family who is part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They don't call themselves a faith-based studio, but all of their

films are, I would say, faith-adjacent. Their mission, they say, is to amplify light through their storytelling. Also, clean content that they want to give people as an alternative to Hollywood fare. Hollywood has no idea what type of content actually matters to you. 80% of Hollywood movies fail because they don't have a soul. What they are known for are Bible stories, clean comedy. They're also known in the past for their fight against major Hollywood studios because their first business was to kind of provide this clean content to families. So they were taking Hollywood movies and essentially cleaning them up for people who didn't want cursing and nude scenes and violence and things like that in their family movies. Meaning you can watch Wolf of Wall Street without language, Game of Thrones without nudity,

or Transformers 4 without all of it because it's a terrible movie. And as you can imagine, they quickly got sued by the major studios. So that's essentially the origin story of Angel Studios. That's really kind of the basis of their company. And then they took this shift into actually producing and distributing original content of their own. Angel Studios has produced content that makes a lot of money. But more importantly, it's content that feeds the soul. After watching The Chosen, John said,

I've never felt more connected to Jesus and his disciples than I did watching The Chosen. That's what kind of leads us up to Sound of Freedom now. Okay, so how does this company that's interested in making sort of Hollywood content more family friendly end up making a movie about sex trafficking? Or do they make it? Sound of Freedom essentially started as a Hollywood film, but then took a very un-Hollywood path into theaters. The film was first connected to Fox in Latin America, which had a deal to distribute the film. And then as filmmakers were working on it, that's when the merger with Disney happened. And as soon as Disney came together with Fox, lots of films got lost in the mix, got dropped along the way, and this was one

of them. So that left the filmmakers with this project. They had finished filming, but no one to put it out in theaters, no one to distribute it. The filmmakers said they went to all the various studios, streamers, tried to sell it. No one was buying. And then through mutual acquaintances, including Tim Ballard, the subject of the film, the filmmakers connected with Angel Studios, and within days, they had agreed on a deal to put this movie into the Angel system. And so Angel moved very, very quickly this past spring to get the film to its base of users called the Angel Guild. These are people who essentially vote on whether Angel should back a project. The Angel

Guild said yes. Angel Studios moved very quickly then to raise the money that was required. So Angel Studios said, we need $5 million to do this. That's kind of the minimum level they needed to get this film into theaters and to start promoting it. So they go out to their community that they've built over the years, and they said, here is a public offering for this film. We want to raise $5 million. And so users, their user base came to this project in flocks. Within about two weeks, they had raised $5 million. And people were putting in anywhere from 100 bucks of their own to $10,000 or $25,000. These are individual investors in the film through this SEC fundraising opportunity.

And that's how Angel raised the money to put this film into theaters. If you haven't gone and seen The Sound of Freedom, please do. Please go see it. Bring as many people as you can. Go to angel.com forward slash freedom to pay it forward. I'm about to do that. You can get free tickets.

This needs to be seen all around the world. Okay, so it drops in movie theaters appropriately for a movie called Sound of Freedom on the 4th of July. It's up against Harrison Ford and Indiana Jones. How does it do? The film does great. Hear that? That's the sound of freedom. I mean, forget Indiana Jones at this point. It's beating Mission Impossible, which came out later. You know, it's a fresher film, and it's got the biggest movie star in the world behind it.

And Sound of Freedom, on a day-to--day basis is beating it at the box office. Here we are about three weeks after its release. It has made about $127 million at the domestic box office. This is a movie that was made for about $14.5 million. That was its production budget. You know, a very, very modestly made film. And this $127 million box office, it's a figure so staggering that it's raising eyebrows. People don't believe it. People think there's some conspiracies at play here. Correct. I think a lot of people not just are surprised

that this movie, to them, came out of nowhere. And of course, that raises skepticism. There's a couple different things happening here. One is that in the case of faith-based films, especially, or faith-adjacent films, as I guess you would call this, there is often a dynamic where churches, other institutions that support these films will buy out a theater, will, you know, rent a whole theater to allow their organization members to go see this film for free because they support the message. So, this is not unusual for faith-based films to be sold out in theaters and then have the theaters themselves be somewhat

empty. That may have been the case, I think, in the beginning for this film. That may have happened. And certainly on social media, you can find reports of people documenting sold-out theaters that were somewhat empty for this film. Went to go watch Sound of Freedom and the employee said we bought the last two seats for this showing. Look how empty it is. But I am highly skeptical that this is some kind of conspiracy

of papering these movie theaters just to kind of boost the box office revenue. There may have been kind of a lag in the cultural phenomenon around this film. Perhaps the buyouts and the movie theater rentals did happen in some places. But I think what has occurred since then is what you often see. A hit begets hit, and word of mouth begets more word of mouth. And then once the hit status of the film

kind of hits the culture and the news media, people get curious and they do go out to see this film. So there's no denying that this has created this groundswell and also landed at a time where I think conservative moviegoers and conservative media were looking for something to champion and were looking for something to rally around. And this film kind of created a unifying cause. Who doesn't want to go out and see a popcorn film for a good cause? John Jurgensen, Wall Street Journal. It turns out there are all sorts of people

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Today Explained is back. Sound of Freedom is the surprise hit of the summer. Part of that has to do with faith groups buying out theaters and paying tickets forward to people who might not usually go to the movies. But undoubtedly, a big part of that success has to do with people wanting to see a movie that's got a message. And the message here is that child sex trafficking is heinous and needs to be stopped. No arguments. But not everyone is jazzed to see Sound of Freedom as a vessel for that message because of the real-life man and organization this movie's about. The man is Tim Ballard. The organization is Operation Underground Railroad, OUR. Writer Meg Conley knows them both. So unfortunately, I have some personal experience with the organization behind the movie Operation Underground Railroad. In 2014, I went on what they called a jump,

which was basically a human trafficking raid that was supposed to be one step in saving the world from what they called the enslavement of children, like through human trafficking. I was 28 years old. My dad, who was my best friend, he had just died. I had two young children. I was a stay-at-home mom, kind of grappling with the isolation of like care work in America.

And I was just lost. You know, there was a lot of grief. There was a lot of confusion. And I wanted a purpose. I think that one way to get through grief and isolation is to feel like you're doing good work in the world. And the grief and isolation was making even, you know, that difficult for me to find. So I get a call one afternoon from this man named Tim Ballard, who had founded Operation Underground Railroad. I'd never spoken to him before, but he did attend church with my parents, which is, I think, how he knew about me. At the time, I writing, I guess what they were calling like a mommy blog and Operation Underground Railroad was a relatively new organization. And I think he

wanted some publicity for it. And so when he called me, he asked if I was interested on going on a human trafficking raid with the organization in the Dominican Republic, because he said he really liked my work and he thought that I articulated things with insight, that I was a good observer, and he wanted me to document the work that they were doing to save children. Ballard's whole pitch at the time, which I was too naive to question, was that he was the ultimate authority on this. He talked a lot about how he had worked for Homeland Security and that he had been trying to get rid of human trafficking this way through official government channels. But they weren't willing to do the work like he was. So I believed him.

And who doesn't want to save the children like he was. So I believed him. And who doesn't want to save the children? It felt scary to go with him, but I said yes because I felt like it would be selfish to say no. We were both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the time. I no longer attend. But there was also a power dynamic there that's hard to explain to people outside of that religion. The Mormon church, which is like how most people know it, has a male-only priesthood, which means like the authority of God only works through men. And women function as supports. There was also a sense that this was like

a divine call to action along with like maybe a moral one. When we get to the Dominican Republic, there's like a long ride to the house where the raid is going to take place. And when I get to the house, there's like a camera crew there, which surprised me.

And I'm told that they film all their jumps because they want to make a TV series about all of their anti-trafficking work to raise awareness and get more people involved, both within their organization and outside their organization, with anti-trafficking efforts. They have these meetings in the house, like in a back room, where the staff can't see what's going on, and there's like a whiteboard,

and Tim Ballard is standing by the whiteboard, and there's like a drawing of the house, like a layout of the house. It is like a drawing of the house, like a layout of the house. It is like a movie. And Tim Ballard is, you know, he's like putting a dozen-ish people there who are part of the jump and they're all these like men like with like very tight t-shirt. Like they do a lot of CrossFit.

Like these are guys who do a lot of CrossFit. It's 2014. CrossFit is their journey. So the next day, the kids are going to be there, you know, in an hour or two. And my job is to blow up balloons. So it looks like we're having a party because they want the traffickers when they come in with the kids to be very sure that like, this is a sex trafficking party where like these men and this one woman, I guess, are here to assault these kids. The traffickers pull up. So they've rented a bus. The OUR has rented a bus and picked up the

traffickers where, and it's several people trafficking these kids with kind of one lead guy. And there are 26 kids who end up showing, like being brought to the bus. We get word that they're pulling up. And so I am sent outside to the pool where there's like a stack of soda cans and kids start filing out to the pool area. They're mostly middle school to high school age. Some kids jump into the pool. I hand other kids soda and I feel, I'm nauseated because I don't understand. Now that I'm confronted with these children, I realize I don't understand what led them to that bus. I get what Tim has told me. Tim has told me that they come a couple days ahead of time and kind of like spread the word that they're looking

for trafficked kids. He says that once this happens, they're approached by, you know, in every location where they do this, they're approached by a trafficker who says, you know, like, I can get you kids if you want to party. And then it goes from there. But I don't understand. I realized at that point, like, I don't understand where these kids were before the trafficker meets them at the bus. It's kind of the first time where I'm like, oh, I don't know enough to be here. Ballard is inside with the traffickers and he's supposed to be like negotiating the price of like each uh there's no good word here um service i guess that will be like quote unquote like provided by each child but really he's negotiating the price of like each violation of each child right um like that would be

the correct terminology like each victimization of each child. And, um, I think that that is going to wrap up. Um, and I, you know, I won't see any of it, but then, um, uh, one of the OUR members opens the back door and calls out to me and says, um, Meg, Tim wants you inside. I don't want to go inside, but I also don't know how to say no. So I say yes, and I walk inside. And Ballard's sitting inside, and he's like got, there's like money on like a table in front of him. And he's sitting and he's talking with them and laughing.

And I'm watching him, you know, count money onto this coffee table. And I'm kind of standing towards the back of the room. I'm like, okay, he just wants me in here to observe. And so if I can just get like far enough away from everything that's happening, like this is still okay. But the raid starts. and it's terrifying. There's a lot of shouting and a lot of screaming, and, like, Tim's yelling, like, like, who sold me out? Or, like, who ratted? Like a movie. And I move quickly to get to the back door because I just, I want to be out by the pool. That's where I was supposed to be. I don't

want to be here. And when I opened the back door, there's a law enforcement person standing there with a very, very, very large gun. And he yells at me to like, get back inside and get down and so um like i'm forced onto the ground like onto those beige tiles um and uh like face down and um like i'm handcuffed and the whole time at this point like once the raid has started, they're not just relying on the hidden cameras anymore. The camera crew has come out and they're moving around the room filming the whole thing. And I'm face down on the ground in this room I was never supposed to be in. And I can, out of the corner of my eye, see a camera sweeping over me. And that footage is on YouTube.

I watched it yesterday. I saw your face. Yeah. It's insane. You know, I get home, and it takes me a long time to understand what happened. And they're just little realizations that eventually become like a, become a whole answer. In 2015, I decided to learn more about human trafficking, which was still kind of difficult to do in 2014 after the raid. I talked to one human trafficking expert who's not involved with OUR. And when I explain everything that happened, they say like, do you realize, you do realize how wrong all of that was, right? Like, none of that was right. Tell me what you learned about this style of sort of vigilante sex trafficking policing.

I mean, how many of those girls that were at that house that day in 2014 had a history of being involved in this kind of work yeah so after this thing i asked like where are the 26 so there were 26 kids and at the time they're telling me it's 26 kids it ends up being um not everyone's not every uh person there was underage um and i'm told told that at the time that they've all been, they've all been trafficked over and over again. I find out later that that's not true. I mean, these kinds of anti-trafficking raids, they create demand where there isn't always demand. At least two of the kids on that raid had never been trafficked before. That was the first time, which means that like we created trauma for them. They may never have experienced.

And then, and then after the raid, I think it was in 2015, foreign policy comes out with a story about OUR and, and it includes reporting on this raid. And I find out that after this operation, a local organization called the National Council for Children and Adolescents, like, they're supposed to do the aftercare. And they realize, like, you brought us 20-ish kids. We do not have the capacity to provide like services for this many people we cannot provide um basically like safety and so the kids were um released like within a week or two and and lost like nobody knows um what happened to to many of them which which means they got a soda and a swim from us. So potentially they may have been back on the streets being sex trafficked again in as much as two weeks. Yes. Maybe by another group doing another military raid, anti-trafficking military raid like creating demand that was nearly 10 years ago

right to your knowledge you know how is this organization operation underground railroad our evolved since then i think they've gotten better at appearances slightly. So Tim Ballard, he, as I watched over the years, I was able to understand, you know, by 2016, 2017, after a lot of research and a lot of therapy, like everything that was wrong with that raid, but also with the model as a whole. It doesn't work. We know that like anti-trafficking raids don't work. We know that the people, like the traffickers who are arrested a lot of the time, they're

usually small fish. And another small fish comes in and takes their place. This doesn't address some of the actual, the people in charge of some of the cartels that are actually really running human trafficking rings. That is real. But this does not do anything to stop that. It just means someone else is going to traffic kids next time. But it also doesn't prevent human trafficking. We know what prevents human trafficking. Social safety nets prevent human trafficking. What Tim Ballard does does not prevent human trafficking. What it does do is create a cult of personality and it turns the world into Star Wars. They're a myth-making engine.

Like, they exist to generate a world in which bad things only happen in quote-unquote, like, the special world, which happens to be, according to OUR, not America. America is like the ordinary world where everything is okay. But the special world, the place where you experience trials, but also your transformation, that is anywhere where white men are not like the main demographic.

Anyone who follows Ballard or is part of the organization, they're on the light side. And anybody who doesn't is on the dark side. Meg Conley writes a newsletter called Home Culture. home culture. You can also find her writing at Harper's Bazaar and Slate, where in 2021, she wrote about her experience with Operation Underground Railroad. The essay is titled Called by God, and in it, you'll find a comment from OUR about Meg's experience. They said, as any other successful organization does, we have evolved and are continually working to professionally improve our standard operating methods and practices. Part of that evolution, perhaps, Vice News reported last week that Tim

Ballard, the guy whose story Sound of Freedom is based on, stepped away from Operation Underground Freedom, the organization he founded after an investigation into claims made about him by multiple employees. Vice News is the place to read about OUR and Tim Ballard. If you want to know more, vice.com. Our show today was produced by Hadi Mawagdi, edited by Matthew Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and mixed by Michael Raphael, with help from Patrick Boyd. I'm Sean Ramos-Furham, and this is Today Explained. © transcript Emily Beynon