Ashes to ashes & ‘Rust’ to dust

INFURIATINGLY, Alec Baldwin was right. Prosecutors in Santa Fe, NM, this week dropped involuntary manslaughter charges against the 65-year-old bloviator in the 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins (inset), 42, at his hands.

The insufferable actor/producer, a guy more famous for insulting his eldest daughter and roughing up photographers, has been “vindicated.”

This is no cause for celebration. A woman is dead. Her young son motherless. Her widowed husband bought off with, among other things, an executive producer credit on Alec’s latest starrer “Rust,” which, incredibly, is resuming production in Montana despite the body count.

And that’s the jaw-dropping aspect of all this. They are STILL filming a movie where a woman died because of carelessness and a disregard for safety?

Has Baldwin no shame? Both Alec and his compulsive baby-making spouse Hilaria (real name Hilary), 39, posted to their Instagram accounts tender photos of the tone-deaf duo crowing over the legal victory.

“I owe everything I have to this woman,” he captioned a pic in which he cuddled his Mrs. — “(and to you, Luke),” he added, referring to his lawyer, Luke Nikas.

Not a word about the poor victim.

Not a syllable about the film’s director, Joel Sousa, who suffered a non-lethal shot in the shoulder by the Baldwin bullet, yet remains with the movie.

Not a mention of the film’s inexperienced armorer, the only person currently charged with involuntary manslaughter, a felony, in the shooting.

Not even a phrase about “Rust” assistant director David Halls, now serving probation, ordered by a judge to pay a $500 fine and submit to other minor inconveniences (weapons training, going cold turkey on alcohol and non-prescription drugs) after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges for handing the pistol to Baldwin while declaring it a “cold [safe] gun” without checking it for live ammunition first.

He is the only person punished so far in the on-set atrocity, though Alec and the film’s producers are facing a civil lawsuit by three former crew members who claim they were traumatized by the gunplay.

Teflon-coated Alec, I believe, will skate on this one, too, even though, as a producer, he is technically responsible for every reckless on-set action.

I can think of one way to punish Baldwin: Don’t see his movies.

No matter what homage they tack on the film, no matter the tearful interviews Baldwin gives, don’t see “Rust.”

Let’s hope the film is a spectacular stink bomb. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.