In a line that filmmakers are still debating whether to cut, a smiling Gary Coleman finishes polishing a car and tosses his rag to someone: "Hey, Barack!"

No, he didn't say that. Yes. He. Did.

That's the movie, folks. In-your-face, off-the-charts, over-the-top, irreverent and insensitive in the extreme. "An American Carol" may not be The Best Movie You Ever Saw, but it's something. It's radical in its assault on the left wing; it's brave given the risk of peer ridicule and the potential for career suicide.

And it's funny -- if you like that sort of thing. Generally, I don't. As someone who is slapstick immune -- and who hated "The Three Stooges" -- I'm an unlikely cheerleader for this kind of film. But I admire its spirit.

"An American Carol" will probably be panned by jaded reviewers who will point out the film's flaws. Some in the target audience may find certain elements too crude -- nurses and doctors playing with an oversized derriere that's been separated from the rest of the corpse.

But the film makes a serious and necessary point that can't be missed amid the laughter and the outrage: America is not the enemy.

Zucker insists he needn't be taken seriously, but he does believe that Islamist terrorism poses a greater threat than those Americans typically demonized by Hollywood and the left.

For delivering that message, maybe Zucker deserves not an Oscar, but a Nobel Prize.