Much of the American moment — of distrust, violence and the inevitable collision between the fringe and the forgotten — courses throughout “Sovereign,” the crime thriller from the writer and director Christian Swegal. In other words, one can immediately recognize Jerry Kane (a remarkable Nick Offerman), even if they are not familiar with the true events his story is based on.
A proponent of the sovereign citizen movement, Jerry is intensely anti-government and sees himself as exempt from its laws, a philosophy that hinges closer toward violent conflict as he has run-ins with the police and ignores the bank’s foreclosure notices on his house. A widower and father, Jerry brings his teenage son, Joe (Jacob Tremblay), along to his seminars in which he teaches his ideas. Close to his father but itching for a normal childhood, Joe soon begins to chafe against Jerry’s beliefs.
Dual father-and-son stories — one between Jerry and Joe, the other between the local police chief (Dennis Quaid) and his son on the force — form the film’s emotional thrust, sometimes for worse. “Sovereign” is most intriguing for its subtle, if incomplete observations of the more complicated realities of both sides of the law that inform and ripple from Jerry’s paranoid world.
Meeting in basement conference rooms, the attendees at Jerry’s seminars are not acolytes of an extremist philosophy, but just ordinary people crushed by bills and the latest family emergency. Disenchanted by a system that seems to have forgotten them, they’re desperate for any answer — even if they don’t know the dark places it might lead them.
Sovereign
Rated R for violence and language. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters.
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