James Marsden as Ed Morrissey. Nick Offerman as Jazz Shaw. John Krazinski as John Sexton. And John Forsythe* as the voice of Allahpundit. Finally, the heroic, inspirational, and yet hilarious story of Hot Air will be coming to cinemas near you!

Er, wait a minute … that’s not what the new film Hot Air promises at all. Instead, it tells the story of a conservative talk-radio star that delivers, um, all of the nuance you’d expect from a Hollywood take on conservatives:

It’s actually worse than it looks, according to Christian Toto:

Steve Coogan stars as a Rush Limbaugh type whose world is overturned when his mixed-race niece enters his life.

What follows is predictable for anyone expecting a hit piece on the talk radio landscape. It’s worse than that, though.

“Hot Air” suggests conservative “hate speech” doesn’t belong on the air waves, and Republicans deserve to be chased out of public places.

Yes, it’s always fun to see an industry that insists on full speech protections for itself suggest that others get intimidated out of the public square. Maybe they can make this a double feature with a re-release of Trumbo, Hollywood’s 3724th lecture about the Red Scare and the blacklist. Remember, free speech is important, but only for the right people. And by “right” people, Hollywood means the Left.

How much do you want to bet that Coogan’s Lionel Macomb experiences The Progressive Epiphany After Tiring Of Selling Out at the 80-minute mark? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

This opens on Friday, but it’s probably not going to hit blockbuster status. Apart from Coogan and maybe Neve Campbell, the cast doesn’t contain any real audience draws. The film doesn’t yet have any rating at Rotten Tomatoes but expect plenty of critical support for the theme. Meanwhile, moviegoers will almost certainly ignore the promotion and flock to Ready or Not and Angel Has Fallen for escape from the constant politicization everyone experiences in every other phase of life. For this kind of beating of dead rhetorical hobby horses, to mix my metaphors, moviegoers could just stay at home and hang out on Twitter. Besides, didn’t Talk Radio cover the same ground 30 years ago, only less ideologically? And with a stronger cast?

Too bad about it missing us as the subject matter, although I’m not sure James Marsden could have captured my sheer animal magnetism. Wallace Shawn might have been a better choice, to be honest. Inconceivable!

* – If you don’t get this joke, I just can’t even.