Flamin’ Hot is sometimes inspiring, but the longer it goes on, the longer it feels — never a good thing. Still, it made me crave Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
Flamin’ Hot starts off extremely strong but falters quickly. While there are things to enjoy about it, overall the film falls flat. It is the first release to hit both Disney+ and Hulu on the same day, which just might give it the viewership it is hoping for. Still, it never gets nearly as spicy as it should have, and fizzles out far too quickly to be anything remotely memorable.
Flamin’ Hot is 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.
What Works With Flamin’ Hot
This movie might center around spicy snacks, but it also has valuable lessons about sticking to your ideas, never taking no for an answer, and being proud of your heritage. These important life lessons are easily the best thing to come out of this movie. It is important to know your worth in any job, as well as to not shy away from sharing your thoughts and ideas.
Even though we see that Richard made some poor decisions early on in life, he was able to come out ahead. This a good thing for kids with troubled pasts to see, so they know they too can be a value to society if that put that all behind them. He becomes an easy to root for lead character after seeing the way that others treat him, which causes viewers to become a little bit more invested in the story.
A cameo from the man himself, Richard Montañez, is enough to get people who recognize him excited. It is a blink and you will miss it moment, but it briefly reinvigorates the film after a bit of a slump.
What Doesn’t Work With Flamin’ Hot
The biggest issue with Flamin’ Hot is its length. You would think with an hour and forty minute runtime, a story like this would flow smoothly. Instead the story starts to drag. The setup is much too long and by the time anything really starts happening, most people will already have stopped caring. It feels like it is over two hours long… and that is not good.
There is a lot of controversy surrounding this movie because Frito Lay is claiming this isn’t exactly how the story went down. Sure, studios often take liberties with films, but this is also a missed opportunity for this one. If they leaned into the disputes, there would have been a lot more sustenance to the movie. Instead, there is no real controversy and the fact that we all know Flamin’ Hot became a flavor, really doesn’t help keep us all that invested in the ending.
Several real life corporate stories have been told on screen lately, all of which produced a better result than this one. Just to name a few — Blackberry, Tetris, and Welcome to Chippendales. They all leaned into the conflict and delivered entertainment that is funny, intense, and intriguing all the way through. There is a way to make viewers care even when they know the end result, and unfortunately Flamin’ Hot just doesn’t pull it off.
The straight up advertising products during the credits feels like it has gone too far. Although, I suppose it did it’s job because I ran out and got some Flamin’ Hot Cheetos after watching the film.
Overall Thoughts
Flamin’ Hot tries to tell an interesting story of how the spicy snacks came to be, but too much time is spent in the before, that by the time the real meat of the story starts to play out, no one really cares anymore. The film itself is much too long and even a great performance from Jesse Garcia can’t make us want to stick around for it all.
Rating: 2 out of 5
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About Flamin’ Hot
Flamin’ Hot is 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.
Flamin’ Hot debuts on Hulu & Disney+ on June 9th.
Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. On Camera personality and TV / Film Critic with 10+ years of experience in video editing, writing, editing, moderating, and hosting.