'Sovereign' Movie Ending Explained & Summary: Is Adam Dead?

Sovereign captures the complex nature of modern-day American society. Sympathy for the protagonists is not what the film aims for; instead, it delves deeper into the ‘why.’ Sovereign is based on a true story centered around a police shooting that unfolded in West Memphis in 2010. The shooters, a father-and-son duo, were a part of a fringe anti-government movement, known as the Sovereign Citizen Movement, that continues to function in the United States even today. What started off as a far right white-supremacists group gradually had more and more new members joining in. The reason—debt. Rising unemployment and debt resulted in desperation, and the need for a solution created a space for bogus schemes to exist. 

Jerry refused to pay the mortgage for his house, so the bank foreclosed on the property. But Jerry strongly believed that as long as he went through the ‘administrative procedure’ and filed an ‘affidavit of truth’ along with a ‘show cause’ order, the bank could not cause him any harm. From someone who used to do roofing as a full-time job, he had become an expert on foreclosures, mortgages, and deeds of trust. He believed life had pushed him in this direction, and he hoped to share his knowledge with fellow sovereign citizens.

Spoiler Alert

Who is the strawman?

After watching the film and from my brief online research, I learned that jargon is a weapon of choice of the sovereign citizens. They strongly believed that by keeping the court occupied by pages of legal documents written in language that is hard to decipher or even make sense of, they would win. The cases would not only be dropped, but the sovereign citizen would also eventually get access to a fund that the government secretly sets up as a corporate trust in the name of every American citizen as soon as they are born. The sovereign citizens essentially reject the laws of the land, and instead they uphold their interpretation of the common law, and they use the strawman technique to relieve themselves from crimes and debts. They believe that an individual can be divided into their flesh-and-blood self and their strawman self. The strawman is the legal identity, aka the corporate shell identity, while the flesh-and-blood self is the sovereign identity. Therefore, they arrive at the conclusion that the debts, mortgages, and legal cases are in the name of the strawman, thus relieving the flesh-and-blood self from any repercussions or punishment. Now that we’ve had a rundown on the basic ideas that are propagated by the group, let’s get back to Jerry and Joe’s story as depicted in Sovereign.

Why was Jerry arrested?

Jerry used to organize cross-country seminars, and that was his only source of income. Strange how the ones who claim to not believe in the US dollar accepted the bill in exchange for whatever pseudo-knowledge they propagated. While Jerry was busy with his new job, Joe was often left at home alone. He was homeschooled, and he’d never really had any friends. He often wanted to walk up to the girl who lived next door and interact with her, but he could never gather the courage to do so. Their house was a mess, and they barely had enough food in the fridge. Joe was used to having his father’s gun in the house; as expected, they were pro-gun use. He was often the one who had to face the people from the bank since Jerry was mostly on tours. His father refused to ‘receive’ any of the bank’s legal notices because he believed that unless he received them, they could not take action against him.

Even though their life wasn’t perfect, Joe admired his father. He was the only family he had, and he strongly believed that his father was a revolutionary figure who inspired others. When Jerry proposed that Joe join him for his cross-country seminars, he was overjoyed. Dressed in white suits, they went from one state to another, discussing ways to essentially scam the state without facing any consequences. But one day, things changed drastically for Joe. They were on the road, driving their minivan, when a cop stopped them and asked Jerry to show his driver’s license and car registration. As a sovereign citizen, Jerry didn’t believe in identity proofs, so he didn’t have any. He showed the cop a travel certificate that he had tailored according to his belief. Jerry was arrested, and Joe was sent to a foster home.

How did Jerry’s arrest impact Joe?

The cops tried to explain to Joe how his father’s ideas had no basis in reality. Joe didn’t know what to say. He had been groomed to believe in every word his father said, and he never thought of questioning his ideas. Life in the foster home was pleasant for Joe. He got warm meals and a clean bed to sleep on, and he could finally be with students his age. Joe considered enrolling in a regular school during that time. As much as he adored his father, after his arrest, he had started to get a clearer picture of reality. He was gradually coming to terms with the fact that, without proper education, he never stood a chance to choose his own path. He realized that he would always have to depend on his father, losing his voice in the process. But Joe’s conviction was interrupted after Jerry’s release.

Why did Jerry assume he won the court case?

A fellow sovereign citizen, Leslie Ann, helped Jerry with his bail, and she joined their seminar tour. Joe had started to question his father’s theories, though he didn’t have the courage to state it out loud. After Jerry’s release, he started to speak more openly about violence. While sovereign citizens believed in the power of papers over guns, he was of the opinion that if everything else failed, it was important to choose the path of violence, not because one wanted to, but because of a lack of options. Joe knew that his father made enough from the seminars to start paying the mortgage, yet he chose not to and instead gambled his income in Las Vegas casinos.

After the seminars, when they returned home, they found out that the power had been cut off. Jerry tried to figure out new ways to stall the bank from throwing them out of the house. Joe wanted to know his father’s plan, but he figured he didn’t have anything concrete in mind and was just planning on taking the case to the Supreme Court. Joe watched his father make delusional statements in court, and perhaps deep down he knew that Jerry’s argument was flawed. The judge ruled in favor of the bank, but Jerry was so delusional that he interpreted it as a win. According to him, since the judge had left the court, it suggested that he had abandoned the ship, and therefore he, as a sovereign citizen, had the power to claim jurisdiction over the matter, and he ultimately stated that the case was dismissed with prejudice and cause. Jerry’s hysteric behavior in court suggested that he had lost the capacity for logical thought. He was desperate to believe that he was the one in power, and he convinced himself that he had outsmarted the judge.

Joe didn’t give up on his decision to enroll at the local school. But he needed proof of residency, immunizations, and parental consent, though he could apply for exemption, but he had to register on time. While he desperately wanted to give it a go, things only got worse with time for him and Jerry. Police officers stormed into their house after the bank won the case and kicked Joe and Jerry out of the house. They didn’t have a place to stay, and Jerry didn’t have a backup option in mind. He blamed Joe for opening the door because he still believed that if they hadn’t, the cops would have simply left. Jerry became hysteric; he simply couldn’t accept the fact that even his son didn’t trust him. He was almost about to shoot Joe before he broke down. Jerry figured he couldn’t give up yet, so he continued appearing on radio shows and conducting seminars, though the size of his audience kept shrinking with every stop. Clearly, he had failed to set an example, and not many were willing to pay for his lectures. He was running out of money and options. 

What prompted Jerry to join the sovereign movement?

During the journey, we discover that the first time Jerry became suspicious of the state was when his child died of sudden infant death syndrome and an autopsy was performed against his wishes. He lost faith in the authorities, and he took an interest in the Sovereign Citizen Movement. After his wife died of pneumonia, followed by the 2008 mortgage crisis, Jerry’s anti-government stance grew stronger, and he started conducting debt-elimination seminars for a price. He believed he was the authority, and therefore he had the power to do what he desired and not what the state expected of him. 

Did Adam Die In the shootout?

In Sovereign’s ending, when Jerry had decided to move to Florida to live with his lover, Leslie Ann, an officer stopped his minivan. It was a routine check that escalated into a disaster. Officer Everson felt suspicious when he noticed the Ohio number plate on the van. After finding out that Jerry didn’t have a license or registration, Everson raised an alert, and Sergeant Adam Bouchart arrived at the scene. When Everson frisked Jerry, he resisted. The officers tried to handcuff him, but he refused to cooperate. Joe felt helpless, and he noticed the AK-47 variant in the car. His father readied the firearm the minute he was stopped by the officer. Joe remembered his father’s advice—they must conquer before it was too late—and he did exactly that. He started firing, killing both the officers on the spot.

Joe and Jerry fled the scene, and they stopped at a Walmart to buy clothes and ammunition. Joe was freaking out; he broke down, and all he wanted was to go home to his mother. He was too young to realize that his father had groomed him over the years to take up arms against the state someday. It was heartbreaking, but Jerry, at the back of his mind, had known that it would come to this some day. The frustration of not having complete power, of not getting what they wanted because, in their own flawed way, they had convinced themselves that they were right and they deserved exemptions, had resulted in such an outburst. Joe simply wanted the madness to end, but it was too late for that.

John Bouchart was devastated when he saw his son’s body lying at the scene of the shootout. Before arriving at the scene, he hoped and prayed it was not his son. Adam had recently become a sergeant, and as a police chief, John was proud of his son, though he rarely conveyed his emotions.

What does the final scene suggest?

John was not ready to head home unless the perpetrators were killed/arrested. When he heard on the police radio that they were spotted at a Walmart, he headed there. An intense shootout followed. Jerry had nothing to lose anymore; he knew it was over, and all he wanted was revenge. Joe held on to his dog as he stayed hidden in the minivan. John and the other officers at the spot managed to shoot Jerry down, and they eventually discovered that Joe succumbed to his wounds as well. 

While the threat was over, the agony tormented the officer’s family. On the night of the funeral service, when John heard Adam’s baby boy cry, he went to his room and held him close to his heart. He had always advised Adam to let the baby cry, because the more he would pamper the baby, the more he would always seek his father’s affection. He had done the same with Adam, and it worked out perfectly. The final scene hints at the father’s regret of not holding his son close while he was alive. He’d wanted his son to become a tough man who would join the police department and serve society as he had, but in doing so, he sometimes failed to show his affection. The baby was all that was left of Adam, and John wanted to protect him with all his heart. 

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