Intense Downward Spiral of Irrationality
Sovereign is a brilliantly intense and thrilling drama of the downward spiral of the lead characters due to the increasingly harmful consequences of them following the nonsensical logic of the sovereign citizen movement.
Inspired by the true story of the 2010 West Memphis police shootings, Sovereign begins with docile Joe Kane (Jacob Tremblay) being the dutiful son caring for the house, tending to his home studies and accepting an eviction notice from the Sheriff while is father Jerry Kane (Nick Offerman) is away from home. Jerry is a sovereign citizen who has given up his old job to travel the back blocks of America delivering ludicrous lectures to like-minded people who believe in their own set of laws using absurd language. Jerry uses this preposterous logic to believe that the eviction notice doesn’t apply to him.
As Jerry seeks to indoctrinate Joe in his crazy beliefs, Joe peeks at the world outside of the absurdities taking place around him. Jerry and Joe then travel around together delivering their pseudo-legal lectures and fall foul of the real legal system which brings them in contact with Police Chief Jim Bouchart (Dennis Quaid) which starts their further decline into tragedy.
Director/screenwriter Christian Swegal with cinematographer Dustin Lane cleverly employ subdued hues to portray the backwoods of America, its highways and less used roads highlighting a culture of mass gun ownership, battered flags and harmful logic. The script, while successfully exposing the language of this movement, is perhaps a little problematic in its portrayal of its followers as misguided simple folk seduced by the charismatic.
Jacob Tremblay, fresh from his role in the superb The Life of Chuck, continues to evolve as a talented young actor who will hopefully be given further opportunities for his star to rise. Nick Offerman is forceful and full of zeal in his role, proving that he is a fine actor. Dennis Quaid similarly finds a role to display his excellent acting skills sometimes lost in the lesser roles he has often taken previously. The rest of the cast also perform splendidly.
Sovereign is a smart and well-crafted insight into a movement in conflict with the rest of society providing an important warning of the ramification of dangerous individuals choosing to follow a crackpot path rather than following proper laws and norms – the potential results of which we have tragically seen in Australia recently.
Reviewed by Rob McKinnon
Sovereign is currently available on streaming services.
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