Sovereign
Since losing his mom at the age of ten six years earlier, Joe Kane ("Room's" Jacob Tremblay) has lived with his dad Jerry (Nick Offerman) and beloved chocolate lab Molly. Being home schooled, Joe doesn't have a social life and has begun to show an interest in both regular high school and his next door neighbor Candace Jeffers (Kezia DaCosta), who he frequently looks up on social media. But Joe's situation is far from normal as his dad is radically anti-government, declaring himself and his son "Sovereign."
Laura's Review: B+
Writer/director Christian Swegal's timely feature debut is a docudrama which hews closely to the story of Jerry and Joe Kane, who shot and killed two police officers on exit 275 of route 40 in West Memphis, AK after a traffic stop in 2010, but strays from the facts with his story of fictional Police Chief John Bouchart (Dennis Quaid, "The Substance") and his son Adam (Thomas Mann, "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"), a new father and police officer. The secondary story serves to put a face on the victims of the crime while also offering a parallel to generational differences, but they diverge too widely in impact, an anti-government stance no match for allowing a newborn to cry themselves to sleep. With extremism on the rise in the U.S. and the same party behind it also championing parents' rights concerning their children's schooling, "Sovereign" serves as a cautionary tale. It is also a very strong debut, especially when it stays with the Kanes, Swegal's clear narrative and direction of his actors the type of meat and potatoes filmmaking that sticks to one's ribs.
After an eerie opening as we hear the voice of a witness to the shooting calling it in to the police over a wide shot of moderate traffic rolling down a small highway on what appears an average day, editor David Henry cuts to the exterior of a neglected looking brick ranch. Joe will answer a knock at the door to find a local sheriff and bank officer paying a visit, stating that they have been trying to reach Jerry Kane to inform him the home will be foreclosed upon in thirty days. While Joe is clearly concerned, Jerry assures him they have nothing to worry about, using the twisted logic of the Sovereign Citizen beliefs he goes on the road to teach to dwindling audiences in local VFW halls and church basements and during his weekly Internet radio appearances.
With Jerry about to go on his lecture circuit again, Joe gets his dad to agree to take him and Molly along. Jerry stops at a Goodwill to attire Joe, who shares his closely cropped crew cut, in a matching white suit and maroon tie. Joe will videotape his dad's talks about straw men, not people, being accountable, advising hard up folks not to pay their mortgages. But as they travel through an American Heartland of small churches, gun shops and big box stores, Jerry is pulled over, and seeing as how he has neither driver's license, registration or insurance, he is arrested. In foster care, Joe will receive food and housing better than he is used to while being encouraged by social worker Brenda Reese (Jade Fernandez, "Deep Water") on his education. When his dad arrives with Molly to retrieve him, it will be Chief Bouchart who urges Joe to think for himself, but just as Joe appears to be staking out some independence, their home is foreclosed upon and Jerry's rhetoric becomes more violent.
Offerman and Trembley make for an interesting father and son contrast, the younger modeled on the older looks wise, yet quiet and withdrawn where Offerman is continually spouting his beliefs, drilling them into his son. Trembley, now a good looking young man, gives the predominant point of view as the observant young man wanting more from life than his dad has given him, his unspoken attraction to the girl next door representing his yearning for a more traditional life. Offerman excels in the flashier role, his love for his son always evident while Jerry's beliefs put Joe into more and more danger as Jerry's exterior world collapses around him. He is chilling as he cradles an automatic weapon telling his son 'This is about conquering now.' Martha Plimpton (TV's 'Raising Hope,' "Mass") plays Lesley Ann, Jerry's out-of-state girlfriend and one of his followers, as a supportive and upbeat true believer.
Quaid and Mann are solid as the other father and son pair, a brief montage of Adam's police training accenting the need to differentiate between an individual posting danger versus one needing help, but it is in the aftermath of Adam's death that Quaid's performance heats up, his resolve evident in the set of his jaw, his grief overwhelming as he attempts to comfort his hysterical wife (Nancy Travis, "So I Married an Axe Murderer") on the scene.
After building to his horrific climax, one which still manages to take us by surprise in the manner it plays out, Swegal cross cuts between the Kanes attempt to flee and Bouchart's desire to track down his son's killers. The final shoot-out is edited with tension and clarity, Swegal reminding us of innocents in the crossfire, heartbreakingly so, once the bullets stop firing. Cinematographer Dustin Lane ("Sometimes I Think About Dying") sticks to a palette of perpetual overcast visually suggesting the storm which is brewing.
Robin's Review: B+
Briarcliff Entertainment releases "Sovereign" in theaters and on Video on Demand on 7/11/25.
