It is not kings but citizens as sovereign, as Nick Offerman stars as a father of a teen-aged son, played by Jacob Tremblay, in the true story-based thriller in SOVEREIGN, about these followers of the extremist, anti-government Sovereign Citizen belief system. The film also features Dennis Quaid, who plays a police detective, also a father but of a grown son who is training to become a policeman, who the father and son extremists encounter. This tale of two fathers is tense, moving and heartbreaking, as their world views come into conflict.
A little research uncovers that “Sovereign Citizen” is an actual far-right, anti-government world view, based on pseudo-legal beliefs derived from their interpretation of parts of the U.S. Constitution, a version of the Magna Carta and British common law. Those interpretations lead them to conclude that if they reject citizenship of a state or country, they can act as individual “sovereign” entities not constrained by normal laws, such as a requirement to have a driver’s license, and other rules of society.
The film itself gives scant few details on the extremist Sovereign Citizen belief system underlying these tragic events, leaving the film’s audience wondering and unclear on much of it, and in fact, doesn’t even use the term “sovereign citizen.”
Still, SOVEREIGN is very well-acted, well-made and a tense film that blends family drama and crime thriller elements in which things spiral down when opposing belief clash, but it is a film that can be grim and hard to watch. It was directed and written by Christian Swegal, based on a 2010 West Memphis, Arkansas, incident involving a father-son pair who adhered to far-right Sovereign Citizen ideas. In the film, ultimately, your heart breaks for this teenager, a good son to a misguided parent.
Nick Offerman is excellent in this film, and the same can be said for Jacob Tremblay as his dutiful son, in this tragic, true story-based drama/thriller. Jerry Kane (Offerman) is a single parent raising his son Joe (Tremblay) according to these extremist beliefs. Jerry makes a living by traveling around the country giving seminars on legal matters, like ways to avoid foreclosure, by following steps derived from Sovereign Citizen beliefs. Ironically, while Jerry is advising people on legal matters, particularly on real estate, he and his son are facing foreclosure on their rundown, modest ranch home.
What little the film shares with audiences on these extremist views in delivered when Nick Offerman’s character, Jerry Kane, talks about those concepts as he lectures his audiences, in his “legal” seminars and on a podcast where he is a regular guest, both with audiences already familiar with Sovereign Citizen beliefs. The film’s audiences would have benefited from a little more basic details, maybe with some text at the film’s start, explaining what Sovereign Citizen is. We do not get an exposition scene from the authorities (mostly police or the courts) in the film, because the authorities Jerry Kane encounters are as unaware of Sovereign Citizen as most of the film’s audience likely is.
While his father is traveling for his work, the home-schooled Joe Kane is left at home, so he is there alone, when a representative of the bank comes by to serve notice that foreclosure is looming. Joe accepts the official papers, and when the policeman with the bank representative tells Joe he has to clean up the house and property and maintain it so it can be sold, Joe dutifully does that.
Returning home, Jerry is irritated that Joe accepted the legal documents, but not unduly so. He has a solution, which is to go out on a speaking tour, collecting donations at each seminar. Usually Jerry leaves the teen home alone when he hits the road but this time he takes his son along to help, and his son’s dog too. Joe is thrilled to tag along with his dad, and is hopeful that they will raise enough money to make a payment on the mortgage and get to keep their home.
The father and son encounter Dennis Quaid’s police detective after a traffic stop, when dad Jerry is taken into custody for driving without a license and insisting on his pseudo-legal belief that his does not need one because he is “traveling” rather than engaged in commerce. While Jerry sorts out his issues with the law, teenager Joe is place in a juvenile group home and encounters kindly social workers that give him a glimpse of a different world. While still wanting to stay loyal to his father, the home-schooled Joe starts to dream of going to high school and of a different future for himself.
In many ways, Offerman’s Jerry is a good father, supportive of and encouraging to his son, although his extremist worldview blinds him to what might be best for his son Joe. Joe is a good kid, a dutiful son who loves his father, but is less certain about the Sovereign Citizen beliefs.
The film is also a kind of tale of two fathers, as Quaid’s character is also a dad, although of a grown son, Adam (Thomas Mann), who is training to be a police officer. While Offerman’s Jerry is warm and encouraging to his son, Quaid’s character is more inclined to criticism, even critiquing his grown son’s parenting skills with his own infant son. Both Quaid’s and Offerman’s characters have their strong beliefs about the world, one conventional and the other extremist, and both have loving sons who are eager to please them. But the fathers diverge in their interpersonal styles with those sons, just as they do in their worldviews, although not in the ways you might assume.
As events unfold with the bank and Jerry Kane’s belief system clashes with the way the world really works, things start to spiral down for both the Kanes, and tension builds in the film. A moment of violence both raises that tension to a high-pitch, and brings Quaid’s character back into their sphere, as the film rushes to its stark conclusion.
SOVEREIGN is a heartbreaking study of a father-son relationship impacted by extremist views, and a belief system (about which the film is unnecessarily vague) at odds with the real world, told in parallel with another father-son relationship. The story of the fathers and their sons is both gripping and moving because it is true, but ultimately, the film’s story is also a sad, grim experience, with tragic consequences all around.
SOVEREIGN opens in theaters in select cities and is available to rent or buy starting Friday, July 11, 2025.
RATING: 2.5 out of 4 stars
