'Flamin' Hot review: Does it matter if a feel-good movie is a lie?

This year's SXSW has brought a collection of comedies delving into the stranger-than-fiction true stories behind such sensational inventions as Tetris and BlackBerry. At first taste, Flamin' Hot seems to fall into this category, as the family comedy focuses on Richard Montañez, a Mexican-American janitor whose hard work and love of his culture inspired a whole new brand of snacks and launched him to the heights of marketing exec at Frito-Lay.

Along his journey to the top, there will be plucky humor about life's dark corners, a love story with his endlessly supportive wife (a radiant Annie Gonzalez), and a couple of cute kids who love a crunchy treat that "burns good." However, this feel-good narrative is more fiction than fact, which calls into question its very existence. 

Is 'Flamin' Hot' based on a true story? 

Based on Richard Montañez's memoir, A Boy, a Burrito, and a Cookie, the Flamin' Hot movie follows Richard from his childhood as a precocious misfit who sold burritos to bologna-loving white classmates, to a rambunctious teen who turned to theft to snatch at the finer things, to a family man working tirelessly to carve out the American dream for his kin. The script by Linda Yvette Chávez and Lewis Colick delivers this narrative with plenty of heart and humor, portraying everything from racist bullying to gang violence with a playful tone in service of its Mexican-American hero who never gives up. 

It's easy to see why Eva Longoria picked the story, which is full of winsome moments of small victories and warm fun, for her directorial debut. But for all its whimsy and inspirational arc, Flamin' Hot blatantly ignores that Montañez's self-aggrandizing success story was debunked by the Los Angeles Times in 2021, though Flamin' Hot was already in development. In real life, there's no record that Montañez had any role in the creation or initial marketing of the Flamin' Hot brand, though he did rise through the ranks from plant worker to marketing director at Frito-Lay. 

The truth, per the LA Times, was that "Flamin’ Hots were created by a team of hotshot snack food professionals." But why let the truth get in the way of a good story? Plenty of biopics bend facts or exaggerate, for better or worse, to sell their message about the meaning of a celebrity's life. So, why not Montañez's? The problem with Flamin' Hot is less that it's a feel-good fiction, and more that the filmmakers don't embrace that freedom to tell a more challenging narrative. Instead, this success story treats systemic issues as mere hurdles that can be bested with enough charm and grit.

What does Flamin' Hot have to say? 

At the film's World Premiere at SXSW, Flamin' Hot played terrifically to a packed house at Austin's Paramount Theater. The audience gobbled up jokes about precocious kids, too-spicy slurry, and the similarities between the hierarchy of business and the impenetrable cliques of a high school cafeteria. The screenplay uses a voiceover from Richard (played by a personable Jesse Garcia) to sprinkle in punchlines and smooth over rough edges in exposition, a tool that recalls the nostalgic ardor of A Christmas Story. Indeed, a childlike joy coats both feel-good movies, allowing the filmmakers to soften the more adult elements discussed. While Richard quips via voiceover, violence happens comically just out of frame or virulent racism is shrugged off with a "whatcha gonna do?" vibe that befits Jim from The Office. 

This aw-shucks attitude can be jarring, especially played in opposition to archival footage tracing how Mexican Americans have been abused by systemic injustices in America. Through Richard's unflappable attitude, Longoria keeps rigorously positive, selling Montañez's hopeful narrative that hard work, community, and a great idea can assure success. Flamin' Hot charts the (fictional) development of the spicy Cheetos flavor from Richard learning the ways of Frito-Lay, to calling on his wife for perfectly peppery recipes, to relying on his kids and neighbors to hype the product in a gleeful guerilla marketing montage. 

It's all very cute, packaging the quest for the American dream in easy-to-crunch steps. However, within this narrative, the film inherently reveals that for a marginalized person to succeed in American business, they need much, much more going for them to overcome the fleet of interchangeably smug white bosses who stand in the way of their ambition. Matt Walsh (Veep, Upright Citizens Brigade) is cast as Richard's tunnel-visioned manager, instantly telegraphing comic incompetence with his very presence.

It's not enough for Richard to have a great idea. He has to go nearly broke, risk alienating all his co-workers, and potentially getting his plant shut down to be heard. He can't just be great; he has to be enduring and exceptional, which eats away at the would-be inspirational nature of this story — especially if this isn't even how it happened.

Flamin' Hot is feel-good but not think-deep.

Flamin' Hot strives to celebrate Montañez's success story, whether or not it's real, and whether or not it's actually all that hopeful. The film white-knuckles its way through potentially derailing dramatic plot points — including possible prison sentences, poverty, racism, and domestic violence — to keep relentlessly upbeat. Once you push past Richard's charming sales pitch, told through voiceovers and energetic fantasy sequences where he imagines himself alternatively as the center of a 1950s sitcom, an '80s movie hero, or an avenging angel, the pluckiness of it all is thinner than Lay's flagship potato snack.

The most intriguing of these fantasy sequences, however, might be the ones that Montañez isn't in. When the business decisions are out of his hands, he speculates on the corporate showdown going on in a distant boardroom. Essentially ripping off Michael Pena's bit from the first two Ant-Man movies, Rivera's voice pours out of the execs (including a spirited Tony Shalhoub as PepsiCo CEO Roger Enrico) as they lip-sync to his imagined gangster talk. Ironically, here is where Flamin' Hot feels the most honest. Here is where Richard reveals that he thinks of these big bosses as crooks who just haven't yet been caught. Here is where the facts are happily shoved aside for the story he prefers. Here is where a Hollywood reimagining is rousingly exposed as preferable fun compared to the most likely stiff, uninspired reality. In these scenes of Richard's fantasies, Longoria scratches at something subversive and tantalizingly thrilling, no matter how untrue.

For what it's worth, Longoria defends her film's depiction of Montañez. During SXSW, she told the LA Times, "We never set out to tell the history of the Cheeto. We are telling Richard Montañez’s story and we're telling his truth."

Truth or fiction, Flamin' Hot is a charming romp that boasts a celebration of family, innovation, and moxie. However, for all its energy, the film's exploration of the American dream — and the obstacles to achieving it — is vexingly shallow. In the end, Flamin' Hot is fleeting fun that may well leave you hungry for something more substantial. 

Flamin' Hot was reviewed out of its World Premiere at SXSW 2023. The film will come to Hulu and Disney+ on June 9.