Anna Kooris/Anna Kooris - © 2021 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved.
Despite the Los Angeles Times reporting in 2021 that Pepsico/Frito-Lay janitor-turned-exec Richard Montañez did not actually invent the enduringly popular Flamin’ Hot Cheeto snack, actor-turned-filmmaker Eva Longoria sails full steam ahead in her first feature, Flamin’ Hot, a feel-good biopic that might actually feel alright if the ultimate premise weren’t that a dude helped a mega-corporation figure out how to market to Brown folks better and thus make way more money.
Oh, it’s not that Longoria’s adaptation of Montañez’s book, Flamin’ Hot: The Incredible True Story of One Man’s Rise from Janitor to Top Executive isn’t fun enough or heartwarming enough or even sincerely funny once or twice, more like it suffers under the weight of its own inaccuracies and formulaic storytelling. One assumes a movie based on real events will take artistic license and pad the truth, that’s a given. But knowing ahead of time that the central plot point—namely, Montañez purportedly bucked convention and corporate nay-sayers by calling up then-Pepsico top boss Roger Enrico to pitch a spicy chip—never actually happened ultimately cheapens the emotional beats, leaving viewers feeling as burned as the snack on which it’s based.
In Hot, Longoria follows Montañez from clever child entrepreneur selling his mom’s burritos at his elementary school to the executive suite at the Rancho Cucamonga Frito-Lay plant in which he worked, making pit stops along the way at young parenthood, drug dealing and a complicated fatherly relationship. Oh, and he saves the chip factory and everyone’s jobs, too. Jesse Garcia (Quinceñera) plays the adult version of Montañez, a wide-eyed optimist who turns a janitor job into a learning opportunity and, along the way, teaches the ’90s corporate drones what it means to make a spicy snack, thereby tapping into the Chicano market like no mainstream company had before. Garcia narrates the film, too, and represents the best it has to offer, even if Gentefied star Annie Gonzalez does provide context and levity as Montañez’s wife, Judy. She just doesn’t have enough to work with, which often relegates her to pseudo-emotional moments before we get back to Richie eating elote while a light bulb flashes above his head.
Elsewhere, screen vets like Dennis Haysbert and Tony Shalhoub deliver lines such as, “You can do it, Richie!” Of course this film needs folks like that, but Shalhoub’s turn as Enrico feels like he was told to bring Santa Claus energy to his scenes, which makes for a certain cheesy warmth that seems unlikely for a top business guy in the ’90s—it’s weird.
Even so, you’d have to be heartless to not get a little pumped for the movie version of Montañez as he shakes things up and gets those hot chips made. New Mexicans might be proud to know it was filmed here, too. Still, if you go looking into the story too deeply, those feelings dissipate easily. Whoever invented those chips, good on ‘em, maybe, just...are we really supposed to root for big business? Gross.
5
+We like chips; Garcia is pretty funny
-Romanticization of business
Flamin’ Hot
Directed by Longoria
With Garcia, Gonzalez, Haysbert and Shalhoub
Hulu, Disney+, PG-13, 99 min.
