Is Sovereign (2025) based on a true story? Details explored

Sovereign (2025), directed by Christian Swegal, stars Nick Offerman and Jacob Tremblay in the central role. It is based on the 2010 West Memphis, Arkansas, incident in which a father-son duo involved with the Sovereign Citizens movement, a far-right anti-government extremist ideology, shot and killed two police officers while they made a routine traffic stop.

The film is based on a true story. However, it is a dramatized version of the circumstances surrounding the pre- and post-shooting.

---

The real events behind Sovereign

A still from the series(Image via YouTube/ Briarcliff Entertainment)

The actual event happened on May 20, 2010, in West Memphis, Arkansas. When West Memphis Police Officer Bill Evans pulled over a white Plymouth Voyager minivan moving on Interstate 40.

The van carried suspicious Ohio plates and was being driven by 45-year-old Jerry R. Kane Jr., a self-proclaimed Sovereign citizen. carrying his 16-year-old son, Joseph T. Kane, as his passenger.

Meanwhile, Jerry Kane already had outstanding warrants in Ohio and New Mexico. He was found to have marijuana and was driving without a valid license or registration.

Sergeant Brandon Paudert was called as backup. As Officer Evans tried to pat down Jerry Kane, a struggle ensued. While struggling during the altercation, Joseph Kane got out of the car with an AK-47-style rifle and began firing.

Sergeant Paudert was immediately killed, and Officer Evans subsequently died at the hospital due to injuries sustained. Neither officer was able to call for assistance before they were both killed.

Approximately two hours later, law enforcement found the suspects near a Walmart Supercenter in West Memphis.

---

Who were the real Jerry and Joseph Kane?

A still from the series(Image via YouTube/ Briarcliff Entertainment)

Jerry Kane was an Ohio-based self-styled "debt relief" speaker who toured the nation hosting seminars based on sovereign citizen philosophies.

He presented material consisting of discredited theories about mortgage fraud, asserting that residential mortgages were fraudulent and encouraging dubious techniques to escape foreclosure. The information he taught was fiercely denounced as phony.

Kane's suspicion of the government grew stronger with time, aggravated by personal tragedies and increasing legal woes in the early 2000s. His son, Joseph Kane, was homeschooled and taught to share the same anti-government ideologies.

He was instructed to be suspicious of law enforcement from the age of two. He was frequently caught carrying toy guns and quoting the Bill of Rights—a testament to his father's influence and ideology.

The son and father traveled together often to Jerry's seminars. Though Sovereign fictionalizes their trip as an emotionally charged and tense experience, the actual road trip was a part of a planned lecture circuit, not an impassioned bid to escape policemen.

---

The film's portrayal and production

In Sovereign, the actual names of Jerry and Joseph Kane were used, and the characters were played by Nick Offerman and Jacob Tremblay, respectively. The characters of law enforcement, however, are fictionalized.

Dennis Quaid plays "Chief John Bouchart," a composite character based not on any actual officer participating in the real events.

The movie opened internationally at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 8, 2025, and will have a theatrical release on July 11, 2025, by Briarcliff Entertainment. It was shot on location in Fayetteville, Lincoln, and Springdale, Arkansas, giving the production a genuine regional feel that matches the setting of the story.

The Sovereign Citizen movement, which is the ideological context of the movie, has been deemed a domestic extremist threat by US law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

The movement has earned fame for protesting government control and advocating anti-police sentiment.

Although Sovereign closely follows the central events of the 2010 West Memphis shootings, the movie is a dramatized adaptation and not a documentary, and what it's doing is attempting to uncover both the personal and philosophical sides of the tragic event.

---