Not suitable under 16; parental guidance to 17 (themes, sexual references, violence, language)
This topic contains:
Children under 16 | Not suitable due to themes, sexual references, violence, and language. |
Children aged 16–17 | Parental guidance recommended due to themes and sexual references. |
Children aged 18 and over | Ok for this age group. |
This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.
Name of movie: | Sound of Freedom |
Classification: | M |
Consumer advice lines: | Themes of child sexual abuse |
Length: | 131 minutes |
This review of the movie contains the following information:
Eleven-year-old Rocio (Cristal Aparicio) loves to sing and has a gift for music. Spotted in a Honduran marketplace by a woman claiming to be a talent scout, her father is duped into allowing her and her younger brother Miguel (Lucas Avila) to audition for an ‘agency’. Only, instead of becoming future stars, they become slaves, sold to sex traffickers and taken from their country, along with countless other children. Meanwhile in the United States, Homeland Security Operative Timothy Ballard (Jim Caviezel) has spent the last ten years of his career targeting paedophiles and attempting to put them away. When his latest operation leads him to Miguel, he learns firsthand of the child’s ordeal and in the process of earning the boys’ trust he forges an unbreakable bond. Miguel begs Timothy to help him save his sister. There is a power behind the trusting plea of this child, and an intuitive force that Timothy cannot deny, one that leads him to the streets of Colombia where he is determined to do all he can to find Rocio. With the invaluable help of Jorge (Javier Godino) a Colombian officer, Vampiro (Bill Camp) a former criminal, and a vigilante, real estate, millionaire called Pablo (Eduardo Verastegui), Timothy devises a plan that will lure in the traffickers and allow his team to free over 50 children at once. The operation is a success. The traffickers are arrested and numerous children are saved. But Rocio isn’t one of them. When one of the traffickers finally talks, Timothy learns that Rocio has been sold to guerilla warriors, deep inside the Colombian jungle. She has been taken to a zone where neither the military nor the police will venture. Risking their lives, Vampiro and Timothy pose as international doctors visiting the region to administer vaccines while looking for victims of a supposed cholera outbreak. The rebels separate the pair and it is Timothy who is taken to their camp and who sets out to find the child he is destined to save. Against every possible odds, he encounters Rocio and manages to free her from the ruthless men holding her captive. Together they face a harrowing escape through the dense Colombian jungle and eventually Timothy is able to reunite Rocio with her father and with the little brother who wouldn’t rest until she was safely home.
Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.
Strong themes of child sexual abuse; Crime; Abduction; Children separated from parents and siblings; Children as victims.
Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.
Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.
There is some violence in this movie, including:
Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.
In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:
Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.
In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:
Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.
In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, including the following:
Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.
The following products are displayed or used in this movie:
There are some sexual references in this movie, including:
There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:
There is some use of substances in this movie, including:
There is some coarse language in this movie, including:
Sound of Freedom is a biographical drama based on the heroic, true story of Miguel and Rocio Aguilar and the former agent who ventured into the darkest recesses of Hell in order to save them. Sound of Freedom shines a light onto a topic that most would not like to think about, let alone discuss but it is a topic that cannot be ignored. The film is heartbreaking in the extreme and includes some actual footage of real-life abductions. The cinematography is poignant and the acting will haunt you because it seems so real. Whilst predominantly in English, subtitles accompany the Spanish-speaking scenes. This is not a film for children but one that should be watched by everyone from older teens to the elderly. Its message is clear: children are not for sale. In a world where, globally, child pornography is on the rise and where nearly 2 million children a year are being sucked into a nightmare there is no waking up from, in a world where there are now more slaves than when slavery was legal and where human trafficking is set to surpass the illegal drug trade, this is a film we cannot ignore. It is a film we must watch and a story we must share.
The main messages from this movie are that as long as there is life there is hope; that stories have incredible power; that (potentially) the heroic tale of a little brother and sister who worked together to save each other can wield more power than all the cartel bosses combined; and that, once again, children are not for sale.
Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:
This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children the importance of safety protocols; of what to do if you feel you or others are at risk; and being wary of those who promise things that seem too good to be true. It is important to note that child trafficking is not just something that happens in Colombia, it is a global atrocity which is happening on everyone’s doorstep.
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