Its plot follows Tim Ballard, a former U.S. government agent, who embarks on a mission to rescue children from sex traffickers in Colombia, eventually going on to found Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.

In Calexico, California, Tim Ballard is a Special Agent for the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), where he arrests people who possess and distribute child pornography.

The painful work takes a great toll on his personal life, and this is only worsened when another agent, Chris, points out that despite arresting and prosecuting numerous child predators, they are largely unable to prevent more children from being exploited.

He meets with Vampiro ("Vampire"), a former Cali Cartel accountant who now works to save children from sex trafficking, and gains information on Giselle.

After reading about a child sex club in Thailand which was shut down, Ballard decides that this is the perfect cover story to acquire a large number of Giselle's children in a sting operation.

With Jorge acting as a middleman, Ballard and Vampiro pose as sex traffickers and convince Giselle to sell them 54 children, enabling the police to identify and arrest her while dismantling her operation.

Jorge informs Ballard that there is no way to retrieve the girl, because the region is a largely unmapped jungle wilderness, and any rebel territory is a no-fly zone for the Colombian government.

Vampiro notes that medical personnel are allowed to enter on humanitarian grounds, and Jorge reluctantly agrees to help them obtain documentation to pose as doctors.

[25] The film features the song "La Maza," composed by Cuban musician Silvio Rodriguez, and performed by Argentine singer Mercedes Sosa.

Other countries where the film was shown include Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Belize, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Croatia,[35] Bosnia and Herzegovina[36] and Serbia[37] on August 31.

The film's central plot point, that of a brother and sister lured to a photo shoot in Honduras, is not an event that Ballard has claimed actually happened.

In a December 2023 statement posted on its website, the organization said an independent law firm reached the conclusion that Ballard had "engaged in unprofessional behavior that violated O.U.R.

"[5] While promoting the film in an interview with Jordan Peterson in July 2023, Ballard claimed to have recently raided a West African "baby factory" where children are sold for organ harvesting and "Satanic ritual abuse," echoing another QAnon myth.

[57][58] In July 2020, in a video post, he lent credence to a QAnon conspiracy theory that falsely accused furniture company Wayfair of laundering money gained from child sex trafficking.

He told The New York Times, "Some of these theories have allowed people to open their eyes, so now it's our job to flood the space with real information so the facts can be shared.

The website's consensus reads: " Sound of Freedom is an effective and suspenseful call to action against human trafficking, yet not free of issues in its depiction of the sensitive subject matter.

Variety's Owen Gleiberman gave the film a positive review, writing, "Let's assume that, like me, you're not a right-wing fundamentalist conspiracy theorist looking for a dark, faith-based suspense film to see over the holiday weekend… Even then, you needn't hold extreme beliefs to experience Sound of Freedom as a compelling movie that shines an authentic light on one of the crucial criminal horrors of our time, one that Hollywood has mostly shied away from.

"[66] National Review's Madeleine Kearns called the film "provocative and gripping," adding that it "remind[s] us that as long as children are being abused, no matter where they are or how many there are, the rest of us ought to care.

[68] Glenn Kenny, writing for The New York Times, gave a critical review: "The queasiness derives from the contemporary-thriller vibes of the police procedural material... Then there are the scenes in which actual child actors perform being prepped for provocative pictures by adult groomers.

"[69] RogerEbert.com's Nick Allen was also negative, writing: "Sound of Freedom is a solemn, drawn-out bore with a not particularly bold narrative stance—caring about the safety of children is roughly the easiest cause for any remotely decent human being...

But while being so committed to such solemnity and suffering, the truncated storytelling by co-writers Monteverde and Rod Barr neglects to flesh out its ideas or characters or add any more intensity to Ballard's slow-slow-slow burn search for two kids in particular (Lucás Ávila's Miguel and Cristal Aparicio's Rocío) whose faces haunt him.

"[70] Slate's Sam Adams said in his review that the film appears to be "a straightforward search-and-rescue thriller, in which Ballard, a special agent at the Department of Homeland Security, goes rogue to free a young girl from the clutches of a Colombian sex-trafficking ring.

But it arrived in theaters surrounded by a cloud of innuendo put forth by its star and its noisiest right-wing supporters—conspiratorial insinuations about who doesn't want this story to be told and what real-world traffickers are really up to.

[72] The Telegraph's Ed Power gave the "bizarrely dull" film one star out of five, calling it a "creepy and breathtakingly dreary child trafficking thriller" whose success in American theaters "proves America is not only a different country – it's a different planet".

[73] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian also panned it as "an odd, uncertainly acted, opaquely intended movie,"[74] while Wendy Ide gave it two stars out of five in a review for its sister paper The Observer, calling it both "an earnest and well-intentioned attempt to engage with a very real and harrowing issue" and "a thunderously crass and manipulative movie that is hampered by erratic pacing, pantomime bad guys and an overfondness for shots of Caviezel weeping God-fearing, manly tears.

[6] Playing in 3,265 theaters in its second weekend, the film made $24.7 million (an increase of 26%), finishing second behind newcomer Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

[85] After its opening week, rumors and videos on social media claimed that AMC Theatres was canceling screenings and disrupting viewing by inventing technical difficulties and disabling air conditioning.

Angel Studios' head of theatrical distribution Brandon Purdie said "these rumors are not accurate" and stated that due to the positive reception and consumer demand, AMC had added 450 additional theaters on July 14.

[86][87] The film, which various contemporary sources describe as a "Christian thriller",[5][88][89][90][91] received highly positive reviews from viewers—at one point it earned an audience score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

"[95] Mel Gibson, Dana White, Elon Musk, Ben Shapiro, Jewel, Manny Pacquiao, Tim Tebow, and the Family Research Council endorsed the film.