If they’re not already, fans of crime thrillers should probably be paying more attention to Hulu, where only recently a crime series with a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score dominated the charts. Now, Nick Offerman and Dennis Quaid’s thriller “Sovereign” is doing the same, and whereas many streaming success stories don’t necessarily come from must-see movies, this particular hit is unmissable stuff.
“Sovereign” comes from writer/director Christian Swegal, who began writing the script after a family member experienced mental health issues and became enamored with anti-government conspiracies. It sees Offerman play a fanatical, itinerant single father who indoctrinates his 16-year-old son (Jacob Tremblay) into the sovereign citizen movement — an extreme ideology that repudiates pretty much all forms of government and authority. The film is also based on the 2010 West Memphis police shootings, in which the real-life father and son opened fire on West Memphis, Arkansas, police after being pulled over.
This underseen crime thriller has already received acclaim for its performances, with Offerman, Tremblay, and Quaid all delivering some of the best work of their careers. The film did get a limited theatrical release back in July 2025, at which time it also hit digital services. But you likely didn’t hear too much about it, which is a shame because that 95% Rotten Tomatoes score is well-earned. Critics are loving Swegal’s film, with Offerman’s casting being described as “utterly brilliant” and the film as a whole being described as like “staring into a national wound.” If you’re tempted to gaze into such a thing and happen to be a Hulu subscriber, you can now watch “Sovereign” at no extra cost, as the movie is available to stream on the service where it has become an instant hit.
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Sovereign is a must-see crime thriller with a timely story
In a crowded field, the sovereign citizen movement is one of the looniest ideas to come out of the modern-day American extreme right. It essentially involves the belief that those born on U.S. soil are only bound by certain aspects of common law, which adherents are sort of just more extreme libertarians who don’t pay tax or follow orders from anyone, including law enforcement, which they view as an illegitimate force. As such, the sovereign citizen movement occupies that bizarre ground where the right wing has moved so far right that it’s sort of met the extreme left on the other side in its repudiation of the police. It’s on this shaky ground that “Sovereign” plays out.
The film stars Nick Offerman as Jerry Kane, a particularly zealous sovereign citizen who’s indoctrinated his son, Joe, into his bizarre ideology. The pair travels the country spreading their beliefs via talks, where Jerry expounds upon the virtues of a life free of any sort of authority or constraint. Unfortunately for them, Dennis Quaid’s Police Chief John Bouchart is about as stalwart a cop as they come, and as you might expect, isn’t all that enamored of Jerry and his crackpot beliefs. If you know anything about the real-life shooting around which the events of the film are based, you’ll have some idea of how all this craziness ends.
For the film, it seemingly all ends in streaming success. According to streaming viewership tracker FlixPatrol, “Sovereign” is doing well on Hulu, where it’s been number one on the movie charts for two days and looks set to maintain that position. So, if you’re not in the mood for a medieval action movie with Heath Ledger, then “Sovereign” should be a no-brainer.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
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