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Angel Studios’ “Sound of Freedom” has been one of the top films this month in the United States, raking in more than $85 million over the past two weeks.
The film is based on the true story of former Homeland Security Special Agent Tim Ballard, who saved children from an international sex trafficking ring in South America.
However, the anti-sex trafficking movie has been met with criticisms from the liberal mainstream media.
Moviegoers across the country have also experienced suspicious issues in their movie theaters which have resulted in them not being able to watch the film.
Compilations of strange issues in theaters preventing screenings of the film, including distorted sound and picture, music blasting over the movie, lights shining in the theater, fire alarms going off, and broken HVAC units only in rooms playing the movie have been documented on Twitter and TikTok by dozens of people.
“Dear America” host and conservative commentator Graham Allen questioned why issues were only occurring in theaters playing “Sound of Freedom,” tweeting a compilation of more suspicious activities during screenings.
The movie has also faced criticism from the liberal mainstream media, which has smeared this movie as a dangerous conspiracy theory.
Mainstream liberal outlets, such as The Guardian, said the film was a “QAnon-adjacent thriller seducing America,” and Rolling Stone called it “a Superhero Movie for Dads With Brainworms.”
“Top-Critics” from Rotten Tomatoes also gave the film a measly score of 73 percent, despite the film receiving a 100 percent rating from average audience members as of July 18.
One Rotten Tomatoes “Top Critic” Radheyan Simonpillai, a columnist for CBC Radio, described the movie as “a blandly competent thriller that finds an easy way into your feelings since it deals with child trafficking (a grave subject matter that has been tragically co-opted as a rallying cry for xenophobic, pro-Trump types).”
Noah Berlatsky, a liberal journalist, wrote a hit piece on the film for Bloomberg, saying the movie functioned as “a QAnon dog whistle” that “has been embraced by the far right and Christians.”
He also downplayed child sex trafficking and called the movie “misleading” because “67% of the children who are sexually trafficked are 15 to 17 years old rather than being young children.”
During an exclusive interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Ballard told host Jesse Watters that he believed the media did not want to have a discussion about policies around sexualizing children.
“These are real kids,” said Ballard. “It’s going to be very awkward when the mainstream media comes after these kids next, and accuses them of being part of some conspiracy, when in fact they were rescued from a life of rape.”
“I think that the left—these media outlets—they don’t want to have a discussion that this film is going to compel. A discussion about why 85,000 children showed up unaccompanied at the border and got released into the interior of a country that is the highest consuming country for child exploitation material on the planet,” said Ballard.
He continued, “They don’t want to talk about why these same publications are pushing an agenda to change the word ‘pedophile’ to ‘Minor Attracted Person’ in order to normalize sexual activity with children.”
Ballard also said that pedophiles would be “happy” to see that “Rolling Stone and The Guardian are ripping on a movie that exposes them.”
“I don’t like the fact that these media outlets are wittingly or unwittingly running interference for human traffickers and pedophiles,” he added.
Nonetheless, backlash from the liberal mainstream media and activist theater employees’ efforts to block moviegoers have not stopped Americans from watching “Sound of Freedom.”
President Trump is also set to host a screening of the movie on Wednesday at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Wednesday.
The box office revenue drew in more than $27 million domestically in the second weekend since the film’s release, an increase of more than 35 percent since opening weekend.
Only 10 wide-release movies in box office history have had a second-weekend increase of more than 35 percent, according to Angel Studios, which typically occurs around Christmas.