I can’t speak for all critics, but “character arc” is not somthing I spend a lot of time musing over when evaluating a movie.

The heroine’s or hero’s journey is a given, usually predictable but a necessary component of compelling drama. The accepted wisdom that taking the viewer from where the character starts to how they’ve “changed” by the closing credits is cinematically essential.

But one pretty much has to address the absence of what one would call an “arc” to the hero of “The Militia.”

It’s a sturdy character study in radicalization and a sober portrayal of the disaffected, gun-fetishizing white men of rural America who don camo, tac’up and play soldier on weekends in the American tradition of “resisting tyranny.”

Except the “radicalization” has already happened when we meet the son (Sam Williamson) who is a Missouri home-schooled chip off the old militia-member dad (Michael Broderick) block. Son
Daniel’s “journey” is a short one, and father Lee’s is non-existent, allowing no room for regrets or remorse.

Daniel, who turns 17 the day after we meet him, has a regular hang with his buds from church. They don camo and helmets and gear-up for realistic laser tag combat. Daniel is the leader of this quintet (Elliott Daggett, Scott Callenberger, Noah Aronstein and Solomon Puckett) by training and by birth.

His Army vet father Lee doesn’t just train with the local militia, where he’s one of the higher ups. He trained Daniel as well.

Lee is a non-nonsense control freak, a less overly bullying version of “The Great Santini.” Farmer Lee has raised his son to be just like him, and mom’s (Laura Feierbach) home schooling — with special emphasis on Civil War battles and “what they teach” him — backs that up.

Dad’s “control” vanishes when the new sheriff (Luke Stratte-McClure) pulls them over and busts Lee for having a truckload of off-the-books assault weapons. Lee’s hostile non-compliance is by-the-book “Constitutionalist.” And obstinate.

“You wanna tell me where you’re coming from today?

“No, we do not.”

That starts up this low-heat thriller’s steady escalation — jailing, armed interference in a court trial, etc. — that slow-walks us toward us toward that moment of truth confrontation.

Writer-director Dylan King Welter’s arm’s length approach to his second feature means that the movie doesn’t take a stand on the issues it brings up.

The father’s unreasonable, unbending and determined to not comply with rules and treatment he has decided that he doesn’t deserve due to his “God given rights,” and the viewer can infer, his white privilege in rural Red State America.

“Aren’t you breaking the law,” the son wants to know?

“My law is complicated,” is Dad’s evasive reply.

Our lawman assures his suspect that “We’re on the same side,” which plays right into the image of policing in general, the rural American variety especially so. But militia tracking and logging sheriff’s department communications and travel routines is enough to get the new sheriff’s back up.

The viewer, depending on her or his politics, is left to filter what we see through our own prism. These are “rightous, God-fearing people” who take Constitutional liberties in the “literal” way they interpret or miinterpret the document. Or they’re belligerant racists who claim they’ve armed themselves to resist “tyranny” but do nothing when a tyrant takes over, starts wars, murders civilians at home, at sea and in foreign lands, steals and self-deals and is left unchecked by a feckless Congress and fascist sympathizing courts.

The acting is more competent than compelling — low heat, all across the board. And Big Dramatic Moments are so lacking that when one or two show up, they’re so underplayed as to land flat.

But it’s the not “taking sides” that robs “The Militia” of its dramatic potential. And without character arcs — “learning” or “growing” — or real consequences, the dramatic stakes are lowered in a movie that seems to lack nerve or a defensible point of view.

“The Militia” thus feels like an exhibition bout where both fighters pull their punches. These delusional yahoos want to re-fight the Civil War. Not coming out and saying it makes your movie gutless.

Rating: unrated, violence, profanity

Cast: Sam Williamson, Michael Broderick, Luke Stratte-McClure, Laura Feierbach, Chris Bylsma and Elliott Daggett.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Dylan King Welter. A Freestyle release.

Running time: 1:55