Nick Offerman’s newest movie, Sovereign, which you can watch with a Hulu subscription, wasn’t even on my radar this year. After watching it, it’s become one of my favorite movies of the year (and I’m not alone in that). The movie is loosely based on the true story of Jerry Kane (master wood-worker Offerman) and his son Joseph, played by Jacob Tremblay. It’s dramatic and tense, and I can’t recommend it enough. However, there is also something that drove me crazy: the whole idea of “sovereign citizens.” Let me explain (and there are spoilers ahead, so here’s your warning).
Jerry Kane Was A So-Called ‘Sovereign Citizen’
If you don’t know what a sovereign citizen is, there are a million YouTube videos you can watch of these types getting pulled over and refusing to show a driver’s license, or court videos of them making absurd legal arguments that have no real basis in the law. Jerry Kane was one of these people. He was even trying to make a living as a professional sovereign citizen at the time of his death, traveling from state to state, trying to convince people that they didn’t have to pay their bills or follow basic laws, based on these dubious interpretations of United States laws.
There are two prominent examples of these arguments that appear in the movie (among others). One, when Jerry is pulled over by the police (which happens twice), he argues that he is "traveling in a non-commercial capacity," therefore, he isn't required to have a driver's license. This kind of thing drives me bonkers. The law doesn't work on silly semantics like that.
The second, and more pernicious argument, is that because names on birth certificates are written in all capital letters, that means that people's names are the equivalent of corporate names, meaning that a person, and a person's name are seperate entities and as long as a person's "corporate name" is used in court cases, or on utility bills, etc... then the "flesh and blood person" isn't responsible for the crime, or the bills, or anything else.
If that all gives you a headache, welcome to my world.
Jerry and his son were also murderers. As seen in the movie, Jerry and Joseph murdered two police officers in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 2010. After making his BS sovereign citizen arguments to the officer who pulled them over, Joseph opened fire on the two officers with an assault weapon, killing them both. Joseph and Jerry tried to make their escape, but were caught in a parking lot, and after a shootout with more Arkansas police officers, the Kanes were also killed.
Sovereign Citizens Are Tedious And Annoying
As I said, the movie is incredible, but like the dozens of YouTube videos I’ve tried to watch of sovereign citizens in traffic stops and in court, I found myself incredibly annoyed with the esoteric and ridiculous legal arguments that these folks make. To be clear, I don’t think they are all as extreme as Kane was, nor do I think they are violent and murderous like the Kanes were, but the arguments Jerry makes in the movie are the same ones you see over and over in these videos.
Many people find these videos funny, apparently. The arguments are insane, of course, but they are also incredibly boring. The same arguments, made over and over, based on no legitimate legal standing or theory, are shown in these videos. They never work. Judges are never swayed. The traffic stops almost always end in arrest. One would think that eventually these types would learn, but no, they keep trying, over and over.
I started squirming during Sovereign as well, when Offerman’s character, maybe his best character ever, would start making these same tedious arguments. I don’t know if everyone has that reaction, but there is nothing amusing about them, and, as the movie shows, there is at least a chance that things can go very wrong when someone like Kane gets shut down over and over by real lawyers and real judges. It works effectively in the movie, one of the best on the 2025 movie schedule, but I still found myself almost yelling at the TV.
