SOVEREIGN is a very solemn and creepy true crime movie about a doomed father and son. We know from the opening flash-forward (with what sure sounds like real 911 recordings) that they will be involved in a shootout with police. A traffic stop gone wrong, small time end-of-the-road shit, nothing spectacular, but just as final as if it was.

Most of the movie is not exactly about crime, it’s just about their lives shortly before that fateful conflict. Joe Kane (Jacob Tremblay, BEFORE I WAKE, THE TOXIC AVENGER) is a quiet, gawky teenager who doesn’t go to school. He tells police he’s home schooled, and it’s basically true; he follows a lesson plan and everything, but usually there’s no teacher. His dad Jerry (Nick Offerman, THE KINGS OF SUMMER) is away on business most of the time, putting on small seminars about debt elimination and forestalling foreclosures. He’s an expert, I guess, because they’re threatening to take his house away but he refuses to accept any communications about it and spews all kinds of arcane (what he considers) facts about why they can’t do that.

He’s a member of what is known as the sovereign citizen movement, who claim not to be subject to federal law because they haven’t consented to it. And they don’t just say that’s how it should be, they always have some loophole or one weird trick that proves that actually technically if you think about it most people don’t know this but the truth is if you look closely at the language here this is how it really works. He reminds me of a kid I would’ve known in my neighborhood, repeating some absolute horse shit he heard from his older brother about some obscure rule that you can use to get a free Coke or something. But he’s an adult and believes it means he doesn’t have to pay taxes or credit card bills or have a driver’s license.

If you’ve seen ROOM or some of the other Tremblay movies you know what a natural on-screen kid he’s always been. Now he’s tall and lanky and pitch perfect for playing this complicated role that’s mostly conveyed non-verbally. He does seem somewhat skeptical about the shit his dad preaches, sometimes asking questions, though never arguing. And he seems to have a crush on a neighbor girl (Kezia DaCosta), or at least is curious about what it would be like to talk to her, or be a normal kid with friends like her. So he’s in one world with an eye on another.

But he loves his dad and does take his teachings to heart. He takes pride in impressing him with his sharpshooting. And as scary as some of what we know about Jerry is, it goes a long way that before we even see him we hear him giggling in delight at the dog’s excitement to see him return from a trip. And Joe is just as excited. I’m sure it’s fun for a while to just be on his own and do whatever, but he starts to miss his dad.

Offerman is best know for playing a lovable small government libertarian grump on seven seasons of Parks & Recreation. Sort of a fantasy version where you can laugh at his grouchy stubbornness with the knowledge that he’s also a good and caring person. Jerry is more limited in that capacity (obviously he has a violent rage to him) but I think he’s also less intellectually honest than Ron Swanson. Sure, he goes off on rants about the unfairness of the system that he surely means, but it’s no coincidence that everything he “knows” about the law always gets him off the hook and makes everybody else the bad guy. There’s always some reason why technically he’s not doing what he’s in trouble for doing and they don’t have the right to do what they’re going to do, and he explains it with maximum condescension like, are you a fucking idiot, are you a child, you seriously believe I owe money, as if there is such a thing? Ha ha ha can you believe these people? Am I being Punk’d? You really believe in money, your honor? Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy?

For now poor Joe doesn’t have much of a choice but to live with this. I think he’s kind of torn between embarrassment, confusion, and loyalty to his dad. He feels important when he gets to start going on the trips, wearing a suit and helping out with the seminars; dressed identically you can see how his dad is trying to turn him into his mini-me. But his dad’s ideas start to seem shaky in situations where he’s not the one in charge. Joe goes to court with his dad, watches him get dressed down by the judge and pretty much thrown out, and then he says that means he won because “they’re running scared.” Yeah, okay Dad. Dad knows everything and everybody else is an idiot and that’s why police arrest him when he gets pulled over with no license and warrants out even though he explains that he doesn’t need a license because he’s not driving a vehicle, it’s obviously a conveyance. You imbecile.

The scene where he’s arrested is interesting because he stands resolutely for this bullshit fake law he made up but he doesn’t expect his son to – he tells him don’t resist, do what they say. I take that as actually being protective of his son. When they’re reunited days later he really seems worried about him, asks, “They didn’t hurt you, did they?” No, they didn’t, but they did make him start thinking about going back to real school. When he’s questioned by Chief John Bouchart (Dennis Quaid, FOOTLOOSE remake) you almost want him to defend his dad, it seems uncomfortable how hard Bouchart is pushing, but there’s a nice social worker who tries to get through to him. It’s sad when she has to give the kid back to his dad and say nothing, because it’s not her place.

Jerry starts name dropping somebody named Lesley Anne (Martha Plimpton, PECKER), a soft opening for “son, I have a girlfriend now.” He helped her with a debt thing and they got close. She’s a tragic figure because you can see how she would share some of his attitudes, fall for some of his bullshit and overlook other aspects of him. When he makes people at a seminar uncomfortable talking about shooting cops she assures them, and maybe moreso herself, that he’s obviously just joking.

Bouchart’s son Adam (Thomas Mann, BLOOD FATHER, HALLOWEEN KILLS) is an officer who will coincidentally encounter the Kanes, so we get kind of a parallel story about that family, that father and son relationship, their own version of weapons training and philosophical disagreements about how to raise children and what not.

Of course we know for sure that some of these characters will die soon, and the whole thing is very sad. The small amount of screen time spent on the neighbor girl I think really compounds it. When she (spoiler) actually waves hi to Joe but he’s too far gone to respond it’s pretty crushing. The real kicker is when she’s just another person interviewed by the news about the horrible thing that happened. Yeah, that was her neighbor involved in that shooting, it’s crazy. Now that’s all he’ll ever be to her.

I know Offerman has done other dramatic roles, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen him as a dramatic lead, and it’s a very good performance. It’s weird that I mainly know him as a funny character and he looks about the same here but in the different context his furled brow looks almost on-the-nose scary. Still, he brings enough affection for his son and unspoken hurt from his own failures to not seem like just a villain. And we can see with our own eyes that alot of people really are being screwed over by banks and others without really anyone to help them, and it’s pretty understandable to be resentful of government and authority that seems to side with the banks always and the people never.

This is the first feature written and directed by Christian Swegal, though he had screenplay and story credits on PROUD MARY (2018). I read that he learned about the case while doing research to try to understand “someone in my personal life who, as part of a mental health issue they were having, became really obsessed with anti-government conspiracy stuff.” So he’s coming at it from a sympathetic angle, knowing this is tragic for someone’s life to go this way, especially a kid who’s raised into it.

SOVEREIGN obviously made me think of THE ORDER, another recent true crime story about right wing extremists who end up killed in a shootout with police. That one was both more exciting as a thriller and more terrifying in its long term implications about the world, though admittedly also using more artistic license with the events. This is more of a drama, a meditation on these people, and since it does not ascribe any bigoted views to them (which I was ready for when the civil war was mentioned) it’s able to humanize them more. What is it about this guy that he can be a caring father and dog owner in many senses but also completely doom his kid by forcing him into this world view standing in opposition to the society he lives in? To me this humanization is not a plea for sympathy by reminding us people like the Kanes are human. I think it’s more of a warning that it’s us humans who might turn out like them.

P.S. To lighten the mood do you remember there was a rapper named Lady Sovereign