Flamin' Hot

While the story presented in the movie may not be entirely true, it doesn't diminish the fact that it is an enjoyable film to watch. Frito-Lay, through a spokesperson, disputed Richard Montañez's claim and stated that he was not involved in creating the product line in question, according to an internal investigation. However, it is true that Montañez did rise from a floor-level position to a marketing executive at Frito-Lay and was involved in pitching new products, including Flamin' Hot Popcorn in 1994. Despite the lack of factual accuracy, screenwriter Lewis Colick mentioned that enough of the story was true. PepsiCo released a statement supporting Montañez's contributions and expressed their concern about the strain on their friendship with him and the Latino community due to the debunking of his story. Montañez retired from PepsiCo in March 2019 during an internal investigation. In the end, the movie offers outstanding acting, a compelling storyline (albeit fictional), and portrays Richard Montañez as the hero. The only mistake they made is telling us it is a true story. But the movie is fun to watch, therefore a 7/10. Watch or skip? Depends. If you like movies, yes. If it needs to be based on a true story to get you going, No.

I needed to watch a feel-good, and it does its job as well as could be expected. Unfortunately, what I only discovered afterwards was that although the movie aspires to be a true story of going from being the underdog to the top, the entire thing is a fabrication, as documented by The Los Angeles Times. Montañes has publicly changed important details of the story over his lifetime, and even PepsiCo itself disputes that he had anything to do with Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Most importantly, Enrico was not even with the company at the time this happened, and Montañes was actually promoted to a machinist shortly after starting as a janitor.

This movie is "based on a true story" but it's not entirely true. Richard Montanez rose from the bottom to white collar marketing without a formal education and was involved in the Los Angeles marketing of Sabrositas in the 1990s several years after Flamin' Hot Cheetos were invented by people with MBAs in the Midwest. There is only one former employee who agrees with Montanez' exaggerated version of events, saying that there were competing ideas for Flamin' Hots in different parts of the country as portrayed at one point in the film. But the film is utter fiction. Richard Montanez was actually promoted to machinist fairly quickly by Frito-Lay and was not a janitor for over a dozen years as portrayed in the film. Eva Longoria is guilty of overstating the oppression and racism that Montenez experienced in his first couple of decades at Frito-Lay.

In fact the movie seems weirdly determined to present Southern Californian Mexican culture as the bottom rung on the ladder, when anyone who actually lives in the Southwestern U. S. and/or is affiliated in any way with the Latinx community knows that there were successful middle-class Mexican and South American immigrants in the L. A. area as far back as the 1950s and 60s. They certainly weren't all barely literate gangsters as late as 1992.

However, Flamin' Hot is fun and light-hearted to watch, and I guess it sends a good message to underprivileged kids living in poor Mexican communities about believing in themselves and giving an example of a successful member of their own community. Your mileage may vary.

On the basis of emotional sentiment this story checks the boxes by properly building up each sequence with just enough "hope" to maximize the most of its climax. There's a sense of relatability, not only in a product that is universally recognizable, but also in a character that we seem to know all too well in each of our own lives. The tone is light and though you receive a certain payoff toward the end, the reservation of critical moments throughout the rest of the film lingers as an aftertaste. We're entering the era of product films and whether the pieces for each story come from extraordinary roots or simply fall into place they all tend to feel the same. Jesse Garcia is an enjoyable screen presence who leads a unique Hulu project, and from what I've seen with his previous performances, he's only trending upward. I approached the film with a curiosity for an origin story that may or may not have been entirely dramatized, and walked away rooting for the aspirational spirit that is sometimes deeply embedded within each one of us.

Great little flick about one of the worlds most popular snack. Hot Cheetos popped up one day out of nowhere while I was in the 5th grade. They were everywhere and everyone was eating them. Leaving the familiar red stains everywhere unless you used the chop sticks but that was much later? Anyway, Eva Longoria did a great job making the movie flow. Keeping things light and entertaining. She did a great job with balancing the whole story with knowing when the scene had to be serious and when it could take those liberties to have some fun. Cast played well off of each other. Jesse García and Annie Gonzales were great together. Fun to see Tony Shalhoub, Dennis Haysbert, Matt Walsh, and Peter Diseth in this. Movie clocks in at 98 minutes but it really felt like not a single second was wasted. I did enjoy this flick with my very own bag of hot Cheetos cos why not? Good flick!