Review: Sovereign – Treading on oneself

Directed by Christian Swegal
Starring Nick Offerman, Jacob Tremblay, Dennis Quaid

7.5/10

Inspired by the shocking true crime story, Sovereign takes a very up-close and personal look into the lives of father Jerry Kane (Nick Offerman) and his son Joe (Jacob Tremblay), which become increasingly troubled as their highly anti-government and libertarian beliefs and actions turn violent.

Jerry makes a scant living holding seminars across the Bible Belt of the USA, lecturing fellow libertarians on anti-government sentiments, namely the scam of mortgages and how to not pay them. His sixteen-year-old son stays home, able to fend for himself, even when the police keep knocking on the door, alerting him of their incoming eviction.

Jerry decides young Joe is old enough to join him and assist in these seminars, so the two of them (along with the pet dog) hit the road, but Jerry’s penchant for being an autonomous individual (i.e., someone who doesn’t want to pay for a driver’s licence) gets him into trouble with the authorities; that leads to an increasingly dark path.

Sovereign has a very direct approach to how it portrays the lifestyle of this father and son and how it leads to such a disturbing event. Jerry is an intensely opinionated man, steadfast in recognising his unalienable constitutional rights, while bemoaning the modern legal system that he claims suffocates his life and the lives of all Americans.

But the film does allow itself some comical characterisation when Jerry is dealing with the authorities, where his attitudes on “self-government” become so ridiculously existential that he can’t help but come across as comical, as he appears to scramble and improvise his way out of lawful repercussions like a schoolboy trying to outsmart his way out of detention.

What lets down the film is storyline B, which focuses on police chief John (Dennis Quaid) and his policeman son Adam (Thomas Mann), who is often seen doting over his newborn baby daughter—oh geez, I wonder what’s going to happen to him? It certainly comes across as mawkishly telegraphed, and this father character brings the film to a conclusion that seems too rigid, yet at least works as a comparison to the troubling father-son relationship at the film’s centre.

If you’ve looked up this tragedy (or even watched both the shootings committed by them and later towards them, at your own discretion), you see just how true to life Sovereign is, presenting many of the details correctly (even the fate of their dog). The slogan of the libertarian movement is “don’t tread on me”, but Jerry seems to be “treading on himself”, as his determination to protect himself and his son from the powers that be ends up making them even more of a target.

DAVID MORGAN-BROWN