Flamin’ Hot review: spicy snack gets a tasty origin story
Eva Longoria’s assured movie-directing debut serves as a testament to diversity
Film Reviews Richard
Flamin’ Hot is about—you guessed it—the hugely popular Cheetos snacks that currently comes in a range of flavors, including Flamin’ Hot Limón, Flamin’ Hot Asteroids, and Flamin’ Hot Chipotle Ranch, which are all nestled within the Frito-Lay/PepsiCo corporate multiverse. But Flamin’ Hot is not exactly an IP cash grab like The Lego Movie, Battleship, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and, possibly, Barbie. The basis of Flamin’ Hot is Richard Montañez’s A Boy, A Burrito And A Cookie: From Janitor To Executive, a too-good-to-be-true, rags-to-riches tale that has been refuted by Frito-Lay and some of the company’s former employees, per a 2021 Los Angeles Times report.
The film adaptation holds the viewer’s interest because Richard, played by Jesse Garcia, is the unlikeliest of heroes. In the 1970s, before he becomes a custodian at Frito-Lay’s Rancho Cucamonga plant in Southern California, he peddles drugs and steals. In the early ’80s, he wises up and seeks a job when his wife, Judy (Annie Gonzalez), becomes pregnant. Without a GED and barely literate, he takes the Frito-Lay job application home for her to fill out. A gang connection helps him land an interview, which he promptly blows by getting caught in a lie when he misgenders the principal of San Bernardino High School while pretending to be an alumnus.
Despite the faux pas, supervisor Lonny (Matt Walsh) takes him on as a custodian. Richard’s profuse enthusiasm and eagerness to learn soon prompt his colleagues to pull him aside and caution him on the necessity of knowing his place. The seating protocols in the cafeteria make the cliquish divisions abundantly clear. Still, he ignores his coworkers’ admonition and befriends the jaded engineer, Clarence (Dennis Haysbert). Amid a series of layoffs and shift cuts, PepsiCo Chief Executive Roger Enrico (Tony Shalhoub) hosts a motivational video imploring plant employees to think like a CEO. Richard takes this message to heart, embarking on a quest to come up with the storied snack, then bypassing all the gatekeepers so he can pitch the idea to Enrico.
Garcia delivers a standout turn as Richard. It helps that he’s not yet a household name, so he isn’t carrying the baggage of any external frames of reference. His earnest and engrossing performance absolutely carries Flamin’ Hot. But since the movie heavily relies on extradiegetic narration, Garcia’s voiceover could use more bravado to match the admittedly embellished history.
Eva Longoria makes an assured big-screen directorial debut. Her seriousness toward the craft is evident in the opening scene, in which she toys with different film speeds as the camera whizzes through a bustling kitchen. Even more impressive is a single-take time lapse sequence set in the factory, with time stamps appearing on the passing machinery, boxes, crates, forklifts, and dumpsters like a meticulously choreographed musical number. Indeed, the finished product feels more like the effort of a film school wunderkind than some vanity project of an actress turned filmmaker.
The screenplay, by Lewis Colick and Linda Yvette Chávez, incorporates a generous serving of Spanglish that imbues the film with a sense of authenticity. The production designers and hair-and-makeup department seem to have had fun recreating the period-specific looks and aesthetics that facilitate the characters’ evolutions. Federico Cantini’s cinematography is another standout, especially the shots of a golden-hued 1960s California vineyard.
Cynics may dismiss the movie as a piece of corporate propaganda. In a sense, it does promote the ethos of Frito-Lay and PepsiCo. But it’s also a testament to diversity, equity, and inclusion. After Richard impresses Enrico, various gatekeepers in the organization are upset about his breach of the chain of command. But those gatekeepers would have simply dismissed the janitor and his stroke of genius instead of taking his idea into consideration. Indeed, this Mexican American cog in the wheel may just reveal the blind spot of the suits who sit comfortably in the C-suite. The real moral of this story has to do with the dissonance of a rigidly hierarchical workplace. As Flamin’ Hot proves, only in an environment where every worker has a voice does everyone truly win.
Flamin’ Hot premieres on Hulu and Disney Plus on June 9
56 Comments
I’m already on pins and needles awaiting the “Cool Ranch” sequel.
“Begun the chip wars have”*( * “Begun the crisp wars have” in some markets)
Olestra Chips = Order 66
Well they wiped the Jedi Order out of my colon
Once you Pop: The Pringle Wars Story.
Once you poop: The Olestra Story
I think it’d be closer to “Once You Drip”.
I’ve seen the porn parody of that one.
“Flavour! ULTIMATE FLAVOUR!”
“Uuuuuunlimited GUACAMOLE!”
I don’t really care if the story here is embellished BS. I don’t think everything that happened in docudramas like Moneyball or The Big Short happened exactly that way either. But Martin is spot-on about how big organizations work and how fiercely managers protect their fiefdoms and perceptions from the high-er ups. No one would take the reputational risk of championing a janitor with even a great idea. They’d either quash it or steal it. I’m sure there are reams of studies from MBA organizational design professors on the topic.
This is “embellished” in the same way that Star Wars is “embellished.”
‘”This is “embellished” in the same way that Star Wars is “embellished.” ”’Star Wars isn’t even real.
But the funny thing is, there is actually a good reason why people don’t take multimillion dollar risks based on the idea of “some guy”.And the fact that the real story of Flaming Hot Cheetos is the story of precisely the type of focus group and sales data driven corporate marketing exercise created literally by a fresh out of business school MBA on the orders of her superiors is deliciously ironic.
Oh for sure. Most would much rather risk missing on a great opportunity than champion something that goes south. Risk tolerance always skews towards saying “no.”I’m not suggesting this product (whatever its origin) would ever have gotten to market without getting through all of the normal gates, just that within the corporate ranks people don’t want to take professional risks while also not wanting successful end-around situations that make them look impotent.
And I’m saying that maybe doing things professionally is actually a good thing. And that perhaps this collective folk mythology we’ve about the plucky upstart triumphing against the odds to show up the so-called experts is mostly bullshit.The experts are experts for a reason.
Yeah, gate-keeping is awful, but if the gate-keeping is more like, “hey do you know what the hell you’re talking about at all?”, then yeah, shut that gate
Did they mention that Richard Montañez started working for Cheetos late in 1990, several months after newspaper articles had been published about the company test-marketing a Flamin’ Hot flavour?
So what you’re saying is that the conventional story about Montañez is burying the lead — he didn’t just create a snack but also the time travel needed to make his story work!
They just could never figure out a way to market the time travel, so they shelved the technology.
It’s that Enrico, the person Montanez supposedly pitched the idea to, started working there in 1990, Montanez started working there as a janitor in 1978.
Oop yes, my mistake.
Apparently started as a Janitor in 1976 and was promoted to apprentist machinist in 1977.So by the 1990s he was probably already long past his janitorial days.
I think it’s safe to say that most ‘based on a true story’ tales have always played things fast and loose with the actual truth, but I feel like these days there has been more brazenness with straight-up bullshitting things.For example: I feel that in the past, you would have to dig a bit to sift out the factual inaccuracies or stretched-truths (because lies or fibs were not meant to be celebrated), but these days the filmmakers pretty much offer it up to you that they made something up, or don’t seem especially bothered by it. This story about this guy ‘inventing’ Flaming Hot Cheetos has been pretty thoroughly debunked before the film started production, but there seems to be this response of “Who cares? This version is more fun.” It all feels very postmodern: like kids that queue-up these ‘unscripted reactions’ to things on Tik Tok, it’s okay to be full of shit, because there is no real truth.So yeah… maybe this is just me taking crazy pills. It does sound like the movie is good otherwise, but I don’t like that there’s going to be this new wave of people regurgitating this guy’s story.
“never let the truth get in the way of a good story”
What makes something “true” or “real”, what’s real is the way we feel when we watch these things. Whether or not it’s true has no merit to us watching it. The sky is red fuck you that you say it isn’t. I’ll stick with my truth thank you.
Or a better example, oh no the EU of Star Wars isn’t canon I guess the way you felt reading it was a falsehood. Check yourself dude. It doesn’t matter how true events in films are.
What makes something “true”
The fact that it actually happened is a good place to start.
oh no the EU of Star Wars isn’t canon I guess the way you felt reading it was a falsehood.Star Wars doesn’t have the chutzpah to claim being based on a true story. The sky is red fuck you that you say it isn’t. I’ll stick with my truth thank you.This is a better example, though. There is no truth, and how dare I and others (including Big Weather) impose upon you my idea that the sky is clearly blue? I’m not like Neil Degrass Tyson nit-picking the physics of explosions or – as you say – the fake snow in Hallmark movies, but I do hold onto enough of an objective reality that the color of the sky isn’t just whatever my personal preference is, that you can’t just make up your own form of math like Terrance Howard, and that when people claim that a movie is based on a true story, there should be more truth to it than not. If truth didn’t have any objective meaning, they wouldn’t need to say ‘based on a true story’.
Oh no Hallmark movies use fake snow I guess I can’t feel happiness when watching them now. This is essentially what you’re arguing.
“Oh no Hallmark movies use fake snow I guess I can’t feel happiness when watching them now. This is essentially what you’re arguing.”
It absolutely is not. There’s a difference between suspension of disbelief in fiction and eagerly gobbling up bullshit from “based on a true story” hucksters.
Oh no, some people genuinely like Quantummania, they must be mentally ill. You’re right, this is fun.
That is by far one of the laziest, most inaccurate comparisons I’ve ever seen drawn.
No, they were *always* this averse to facts. It’s why the phrase is “based on a true story” and not just “this is a true story”.The only modern twist is that the internet has made the “truth” much more available so the viewers are more aware of how untrue the movie is.
You must fucking hate Elizabeth, Braveheart, Dances With Wolves, Ghandi, Patton, A Man For All Seasons, and a couple hundred more historical dramas. All of them riddled with historical inaccuracy!
You are out of your mind if Patton is comparable to Braveheart. That’s a film that had technical advisors from the war and was based on a biography of Patton, many of the quotes are directly from the book and while its an old biography it still holds up after half a century. Yes there are inaccuracies, having to use M48 Patton tanks instead of Shermans and Panzers, mixing two slapping stories into one, and while George C Scott looks spot on, the real Patton had a squeaky voice. Its all about the type of inaccuracies, having the wrong tank or gun is an acceptable mistake unless your a gun nut. But something like Braveheart, which changes dates, omits people, makes Queen Isabella 20 some instead of 11, makes a war between nobles seem like freedom vs oppression, and just silly stuff like cutting out a bridge from battle called Sterling Bridge. Not comparable!
One film that I’ve idly wondered about in this respect is Argo; it’s another “based on a true story” historical drama, but I haven’t cared enough to actually investigate which parts were faked up for the movie.(If I had to guess, I would say that in real life, the children working for the Iranian regime did not finish reconstructing the shredded documents fast enough for security forces to have a dramatic chase with the airplane that got all our principals out of Iran in the nick of time. It probably happened days later and the extraction went smoothly, but then you don’t get a climactic chase scene to carry us to the denouement.)
I know you said you don’t care, but as a Canadian I feel compelled to point out that Argo is very much pro-U.S. B.S., making Affleck and the CIA look like the heroes when in reality the Canadians masterminded the thing and Affleck’s character was in Iran for something like 12 hours.
I don’t care enough to investigate, no, but I always care enough to enjoy when somebody else has done the work for me and wants to share it. What else are comments sections for?
I know some people who fact checked Argo. Generally speaking the operation and names are correct, but they amped up the tension for dramatic effect. The Iranian government figured out who the people were after they already left there was no rush to the airport or like you said, piecing documentation together.
Also, in real life he had three kids, which gets kind of moving as the script had his single son named after the oldest, but he requested it to be changed to the youngest, who’d recently died of cancer.
Cynics may dismiss the movie as a piece of corporate propaganda. In a sense, it does promote the ethos of Frito-Lay and PepsiCo. But it’s also a testament to diversity, equity, and inclusion wow this sounds like a REALLY fun movie, huh?
Meh, I will stick with Takis Fuego for my spicy chip leanings.And actually invented in Mexico by shockingly….Mexicans!
He worked for Frito-Lay. Cheetos is a brand, not a company.
https://imgflip.com/i/7okau0
Cynics may dismiss the movie as a piece of corporate propaganda.
Cynics may dismiss this as largely papering over the fact that this is a completely fictional story that Montañez promoted a fabricated story for years.He was a folk hero in Southern California and in the broader Latino community, and it was all bullshit.
Oliver Stone’s JFK is mostly bullshit, but still a great movie. I’ll give this one a watch, really interested to see what Eva Longoria does as a director.
Yeah, it does sound good. Not loving AV Club listing it as a “biography/drama/history.” Two of those things are simply not true.
I think the difference is that the second someone mentions JFK, you know the next thing they’re going to tell you involves aliens building the pyramids or some such thing.
While I appreciate the minority angle, Jesus, this was a neo-liberal “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” fever dream! There are moments that acknowledge the “too good to be true” angle but they seem to exist to lampshade that the entire story is BS.
Smaller chip makers that sold to inner cities kids, was making hot cheese curls before Flamin hots.
Well, now that this movie has cleared the path, after years of watching and re-watching The Wire it’s beyond time to make a sequel to The Founder, this time all about the guy who managed to get the chicken all the way off the bone and create McNuggets. Yes, it’s high time we finally tell the story of Mr. Nugget himself. I just assume that’s his actual name.
Okay, but the fact remains that Taco Bell was founded by a guy called “Glen Bell”.
You know what’s cool? A billion cheetos
Do you think that when the company was firing people, they called them “Frito Lay-offs” to make it more fun?
Cynics may dismiss the movie as a piece of corporate propaganda.Thank you, we will.
I was going to say something standard avclub snarky like, “This is like making a movie from A Million Little Pieces”, except they actually did that – over a decade later! – which is insanehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Million_Little_Pieces_(film)
“In a sense, it does promote the ethos of Frito-Lay and PepsiCo.”Say what you will about the tenets of Yum Brands, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.