OSCARS 2024: Flamin' Hot (2023)

The biopic has existed almost as long as movies have, Hollywood rarely having met an “inspirational true story” that it didn't see cinematic potential in. Yet the biographical movie has taken a weird turn lately. You can't write about the film business these days without being painfully aware that Wall Street types control everything, pushing their obsession with “I.P.” and “brands” to the forefront to the exclusion of the actual art of filmmaking. At some point recently, some exec somewhere must've had the dreadful realization that they didn't need a person's story to center a movie. Brands themselves could sell stories. And so, we've gotten films about “Tetris,” Air Jordan, BlackBerry, and an upcoming one on PopTarts. All of these motion pictures center the product more so than the people that created them. 

Probably the most controversial of these brand-conscious biopics is “Flamin' Hot,” the movie about the creation of Flamin' Hot Cheetos. It's such an innocuous concept, built around such a commonplace snack food, that you have to wonder what possibly could be controversial about it. Except, of course, the “true” story “Flamin' Hot' proports to tell is almost one hundred percent bullshit. Out of all of 2023's "buy-opics," this is the one the Academy of Motion Pictures Art and Sciences deemed worthy of a nomination. Namely because industry veteran/running joke Diane Warren contributed a song to its end credits montage, causing “Flamin' Hot” to sneak into the Best Original Song category like lingering Cheetos dust under your fingernails. 

"Flamin' Hot" tells the largely discredited story of how Richard Montañez single-handedly invented the wildly popular, spicy corn snack. It follows his early years with his abusive father, falling into petty theft as a young man, and how he met his ever-loving wife, Judy. Struggling to support his growing family, Richard turns his back on crime and looks for gainful employment despite his lack of a high school diploma. Eventually, he convinces a boss to hire him at the Frito-Lay factory in Rancho Cucamonga as a janitor. Richard does well and attempts to form upwardly mobile relationship with other workers in the factory. As various economical difficulties lead the factory to cut hours and lay people off, Richard gets an idea to combine traditional Mexican chili spices with Frito-Lay's snack foods. He creates a formula himself and attempts to pitch the product to the company, eventually leaping through extraordinary hoops to sell the idea directly to the CEO. 

The biopic genre has always struggled with the risk of becoming hagiographies for complex human beings, who made mistakes and had flaws despite whatever great deeds they accomplished. When you extend this idea not to people but products, an even more insidious threat emerges. Essentially, what is stopping a movie like this from becoming an extended commercial for Flamin' Hot Cheetos and the company that sells them? Is this a movie or merely a piece of corporate propaganda, meant to get us to associate a heartwarming "true" story with a snack food giant that only wants to sell you something and make a profit? 

While I've seen people say positive things about "Air" or "BlackBerry," "Flamin' Hot" is more-or-less what I expected from such a premise. The movie portrays Richard Montañez as absolutely loving his job at the Frito-Lay factory. Even when he has to be lowered into an enormous basin and hose off the cheese powder slime, he's shown having a great time. The backbreaking realities of blue collar work, especially when you're at the bottom like this, are never depicted. The company's CEO, Roger Enrico, is portrayed as a benevolent figure, a wise and kind risk taker who speaks in commercial jargon and takes a chance on the little guy with a dream when no one else will. While the racial and cultural boundaries of the 1980s are acknowledged, they are portrayed as the faults of individual people, not a system. Yes, Frito-Lay might've laid people off but that was the fault of the economy, not the company. Oh sure, Flamin' Hot Cheetos almost failed because of a lack of marketing but that was because of one asshole exec, certainly not because the corporation itself made any racist assumptions about the nonviability of "ethnic" snack food. When Richard's idea becomes a hit, he ascends from the status of lowly janitor to company exec, showing that corporations are good and loving to all their employees and that anything is possible in the magical culture of capitalism. 

It is, to say the least, hard to swallow. Even if "Flamin' Hot's" plot wasn't entirely an invention, this would still come off as a deeply swallow depiction of life at a snack food factory. There are other concerns too. "Flamin' Hot" is directed by Eva Longeria, her debut as a feature filmmaker. Obviously, the movie is meant to be a celebration of Latino culture and how it inched into the mainstream. Yet the way so many people around Richard are depicted in stereotypical roles as gangbangers or, in the case of his father, an abusive religious zealot can't help but bring certain unseemly connotations to mind. It really feels like "Flamin' Hot" is saying that Montañez earned his success because he's one of the "good ones." Outside of his wife and kids, the film doesn't introduce any other positive Mexican-American figures until Richard gets hired at Frito-Lay. Once again associating the company with reassuring - and deeply racist - narratives about how any one can rise through the ranks in America... As long as they are a "tribute to their race." 

All of that aside, "Flamin' Hot" isn't an especially compelling film in its own right. Much of the movie is edited like a trailer, with fast-cut montages through Richard's life as he begins his journey towards his destiny of making a hit junk food. The film even deploys clichés like record scratches and "you're probably wondering how I got here!" More-or-less all the story beats you expect from the biopic genre are present. Such as Judy standing by Richard through adversity, a sappy scene where he makes up with his asshole dad, and the role of a prayer candle. Richard having to organize guerilla marketing to sell the product is gratuitously set-up by earlier sequences. (And yet another example of the film trying to associate a product with grass roots movements and a sense of community.) About the only thing breaking up the monotony are fantasy sequences where Richard imagines CEO solving problems like street thugs, which, uh, aren't great either. Jesse Garcia and Annie Gonzalez give coy, often obnoxiously adorable performances as Richard and Judy. 

By the way, in reality, the Flamin' Hot flavor was developed by McCormick miles away from the factory where Montañez worked. The countless inconsistencies in his story - Richard Enrico didn't even become the CEO of PepsiCo until 1993, for one glaring example - have been pointed out extensively. While Montañez did rise from the position of janitor to marketing exec, he had nothing to do with the creation of the titular snack. This makes "Flamin' Hot's" in-narrative of blending of fact and fantasy all the more insulting. When confronted with these facts, Richard has claimed that what he says is basically true but his contributions just weren't documented. Surely, this has nothing to do with his current career as a keynote speaker and self-help guru. If not for its unseemly status as boldface corporate propaganda and an uncomfortable support of a big old lie, "Flamin' Hot" would be an all-together mediocre and unforgettable motion picture. It's a lot like Cheetos themselves, an airy and insubstantial snack that leaves you feeling kind of guilty for consuming it at all. By the way, the Diane Warren written song is mildly catchy but ultimately unforgettable. If not for the Academy's music branch having some sick desire to nominate her every year, I'd have no idea why it was singled out. [4/10]