Flamin' Hot
2023
Action / Biography / Drama / History

Flamin' Hot
2023
Action / Biography / Drama / History
Plot summary
The inspiring true story of Richard Montañez, the Frito Lay janitor who channeled his Mexican American heritage and upbringing to turn the iconic Flamin' Hot Cheetos into a snack that disrupted the food industry and became a global pop culture phenomenon.
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
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Could we truly call it a Biographical movie if its based on lies?
Inauthentic feel-good fabrication
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.
Did PepsiCo Get This Ad For Free?
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.