Flamin’ Hot (2023) – Heart-Warming

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 9th June
Seen: 3rd September

In the episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend titled “Josh’s Ex-Girlfriend Is Crazy” there’s a song titled The End Of The Movie where noted songperson Josh Groban reminds us of a universal truth… “Life doesn’t make narrative sense”. This reality creates a problem when someone becomes famous enough to warrant a portion of their life being turned into a biopic, a strange series of events has to be somewhat retrofitted into a three-act film structure in a way that might not be completely accurate but still tells a satisfying story. 

This might be why most biopics about big entertainers feel like it’s the same film, because “Does a lot of drugs, almost dies, gets over drugs, triumphs” is a good enough structure that fits most artists… this is also why it doesn’t matter that much how accurate a biopic is because by the nature of “Telling a story that took 10 years over the course of 90 minutes”, some things will change. All this is to say is that it doesn’t matter how accurate Flamin’ Hot is to the actual history of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos as long as it’s a good movie, which is what I shall now spend the next 800-1000 words exploring.

Flamin’ Hot tells the story of Richard Montañez (Jesse Garcia), a janitor at Frito Lay who came up with the specific recipe and marketing strategy behind the massive hit product Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Starting from his beginnings trying to make it in gangs, the film follows his slow rise through the company while dealing with the abhorrent racism of the 80s (which is not that different to the abhorrent racism of today), the economic destruction brought on by the Reagan administration and corporate politics that is intentionally designed to keep the rich at the top and the poor at the bottom. 

Now right off the top, yes there are allegations that Richard did not actually invent the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto. There are entire articles where members of Frito-Lay state this and they have an alternate history (wouldn’t be the first time that a large company downplayed the importance of workers who didn’t fit the standard corporate image). On some level, Flamin’ Hot does acknowledge Richard’s penchant for exaggeration and embellishing details of his story but it also takes his word as the gospel truth and in terms of a narrative, it’s the most interesting version that could be chosen. Sorry, I don’t wanna see a film about half a dozen testers slowly working out how to make a chip flavour, give me the classic underdog story that explores the reality of trying to make it as a Mexican during the Reagan administration.

A big emphasis of Flamin’ Hot is just how much racial politics clearly played a part in not only how hard it was to get ahead but how corporations perceived Richard and people like him. On one level this is a biopic about a single man but on a larger scale this is just a story about an entire class of people who had every obstacle thrown their way while just trying to survive in a society that deems them lesser than and it’s powerful to see someone overcoming those. Flamin’ Hot doesn’t shy away from depicting not just the politics of the time but its very real impact, albeit obviously somewhat softened to be palatable for a modern audience (it’s PG, we aren’t having any bad language here if we can help it).

Also helping make Flamin’ Hot work is the expert direction by Eva Longoria (in her feature film directorial debut, here’s hoping this leads to a lot more features by her) who manages to not only pull out some brilliant performances by this incredibly talented cast but knows when to indulge in some stylistic choices (be they cool little graphic inserts, fun editing tricks or just having everyone lip sync to a comically exaggerated version of events) to help break the tension up. It’s a balancing act that allows the film to be more enjoyable than a straight documentary about the invention of a snack food should be.

That might be where the real magic of Flamin’ Hot is, the story is one that probably shouldn’t be that entertaining because it’s just about how someone taught people how seasoning something can make it tastier but with a combination of creative visual choices, a good script and some pretty great performances the material is elevated to actually being quite enjoyable. It’s a tough balancing act to pull off but Flamin’ Hot manages to make it all work together, never pushing things so far it becomes saccharine or cheesy which it could quite easily have done. It feels somewhat comparable to Air which came out earlier this year, albeit with a little more of a spring in its step. It’s still about a weird little corporate fluke that became a monster hit, but this film is having fun with the idea which makes it a lot more enjoyable to watch.

Flamin’ Hot is a great example of how to take a story that could seem incredibly insignificant and turn it into an enjoyable experience to witness. Sure it might not be the most accurate film ever, maybe someone will make a documentary exploring the true story (or, as one might suspect, the story that makes the corporate body of Frito Lay look the best) but even if this was an entirely made up story it’s still a good one with a charming lead, great direction by someone who should be given a lot more feature film directing work and the kind of spicy energy that you just can’t get anywhere else.