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Movie Review: Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Get a Loaded Origin Story, One That’s Worth the Crunch

This image released by Searchlight Pictures shows Jesse Garcia in a scene from "Flamin' Hot," a tale of how a Mexican American janitor came up with the idea for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. (Searchlight Pictures via AP)
This image released by Searchlight Pictures shows Jesse Garcia in a scene from "Flamin' Hot," a tale of how a Mexican American janitor came up with the idea for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. (Searchlight Pictures via AP)
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Movie Review: Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Get a Loaded Origin Story, One That’s Worth the Crunch

This image released by Searchlight Pictures shows Jesse Garcia in a scene from "Flamin' Hot," a tale of how a Mexican American janitor came up with the idea for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. (Searchlight Pictures via AP)
This image released by Searchlight Pictures shows Jesse Garcia in a scene from "Flamin' Hot," a tale of how a Mexican American janitor came up with the idea for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. (Searchlight Pictures via AP)

Flamin’ Hot Cheetos get an origin story worthy of any Marvel superhero with Hulu’s totally engrossing “Flamin’ Hot.” It’s the tale of how a struggling Mexican American janitor came up with the idea of adding spice to the cornmeal, forever saving after-school snacking.

Is it true? Probably not. Don’t let that stop you.

You’ll wish “Flaming Hot” was accurate because it’s a winning tale of perseverance, family love, proud heritage and blue-collar success, told with a wink, some Cheetos dust and a ton of love by Eva Longoria, in her directorial debut.

Jesse Garcia stars as Richard Montañez, a one-time Frito-Lay floor-sweeper in southern California who convinced his bosses to make a snack that celebrates the flavors of Mexico despite a seven-layer dip of sceptics.

“New products take years to develop, cost millions to launch and they do not get created by blue-collar hoodlums, who probably can’t spell hoodlum,” our hero is told.

Nevertheless, Montañez persists, cracking the Latino market and repairing his relationship with his abusive father along the way. “I’m the guy who helped bring the world the most popular snack it’s ever seen,” he says in a voice-over.

It’s an unlikely story, for sure. No, really. It’s unlikely. The Los Angeles Times has published allegations that Montañez fabricated his role in the snack’s creation and Frito-Lay says he “was not involved.”

But Longoria and the screenplay by Lewis Colick and Linda Yvette Chávez — based on Montañez memoir — will have you cheering when the gnarled red snacks finally zip along on an assembly line and you’ll be ready to gleefully fist-bump Montañez, played understatedly but with deep soul by Garcia.

This is more than just a snack-version “Rocky” story, with the filmmakers exploring the insecurity of factory shift workers, the stress of integrating into white culture, how hard it is for corporations to innovate and the ability to silence the voices in your head that urge you to quit.

In one heartbreaking early scene, Montañez — so poor he waters down the milk for his kids and uses chewing gum to seal holes in their shoes — is wide-eyed at the Frito-Lay factory until he notices all the overcooked chips are tossed. “People are always trying to throw away the brown ones,” he says.

The filmmakers enliven their story with wonderful flights of fancy, like when we see Montañez lose it and beat up a manager with a mop after being called Paco. “Nah, just kidding,” he says in the voice over. “What you think? It was my first week on the job.”

To show the passage of time during the Reagan administration, they’ve also cleverly got a man on the factory floor holding a box reading “1985,” the extruder pumps out “1986” and forklifts carrying boxes that read “1987” and “1988.”

There are a few references to Frito-Lay scientists in the Midwest also working on a spicy flavor, but this is strictly a fist-in-the-air portrayal of Montañez alone, set to a soundtrack of Latin artists like Santana, Los Lobos and Ozomatli.

His heroic arc is more than a little unbelievable, especially when he taps his former drug-dealing pals to start handing out free bags of chips like pushers, and for the many times he jumps up on a piece of factory equipment to deliver a “Dead Poets Society”-like speech.

Dennis Haysbert as a gruff engineer, Annie Gonzalez as Montañez’s loving wife and Tony Shalhoub as the CEO of Frito-Lay all add welcome flavor notes.

It’s the montages that really shine, like the moment in a park when Montañez, eating elote and watching everyone put hot sauce on their food, gets a vision of a spicy snack. “I had been searching for an answer. Or a door to open. And there it was all around me. It had been there the entire time,” he says.

There’s also the sequence when he and his family try every chile combo — poblano, pasilla, serrano, guajillo and habanero included — until they find the right formula, often hovering around their youngest kid as he samples a chip and gives them the green light.

The final product is credited with opening the door to cool new convenience store flavors and for US corporations to finally respect the Latino market. That’s a lot of stuff to put in a bag of chips, even if it’s all made up. But it’s so fun to watch. It burns so good.

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Robert Towne, Oscar-Winning Writer of ‘Chinatown,’ Dies at 89

Robert Towne, Oscar-Winning Writer of ‘Chinatown,’ Dies at 89
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Robert Towne, Oscar-Winning Writer of ‘Chinatown,’ Dies at 89

Robert Towne, Oscar-Winning Writer of ‘Chinatown,’ Dies at 89

Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenplay writer of "Shampoo," "The Last Detail" and other acclaimed films whose work on "Chinatown" became a model of the art form and helped define the jaded allure of his native Los Angeles.

Towne died Monday surrounded by family at his home in Los Angeles, said publicist Carri McClure. She declined to comment on any cause of death.

In an industry which gave birth to rueful jokes about the writer's status, Towne for a time held prestige comparable to the actors and directors he worked with. Through his friendships with two of the biggest stars of the 1960s and '70s, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, he wrote or co-wrote some of the signature films of an era when artists held an unusual level of creative control. The rare "auteur" among screen writers, Towne managed to bring a highly personal and influential vision of Los Angeles onto the screen.

"It's a city that's so illusory," Towne told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview. "It's the westernmost west of America. It's a sort of place of last resort. It's a place where, in a word, people go to make their dreams come true. And they're forever disappointed."

Recognizable around Hollywood for his high forehead and full beard, Towne won an Academy Award for "Chinatown" and was nominated three other times, for "The Last Detail," "Shampoo" and "Greystroke." In 1997, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Writers Guild of America.

His success came after a long stretch of working in television, including "The Man from U.N.C.L.E" and "The Lloyd Bridges Show," and on low-budget movies for "B" producer Roger Corman. In a classic show business story, he owed his breakthrough in part to his psychiatrist, through whom he met Beatty, a fellow patient. As Beatty worked on "Bonnie and Clyde," he brought in Towne for revisions of the Robert Benton-David Newman script and had him on the set while the movie was filmed in Texas.

Towne's contributions were uncredited for "Bonnie and Clyde," the landmark crime film released in 1967, and for years he was a favorite ghost writer. He helped out on "The Godfather" and "Heaven Can Wait" among others and referred to himself as a "relief pitcher who could come in for an inning, not pitch the whole game." But Towne was credited by name for Nicholson's macho "The Last Detail" and Beatty's comedy "Shampoo" and was immortalized by "Chinatown," the 1974 thriller set during the Great Depression.

"Chinatown" was directed by Roman Polanski and starred Nicholson as J.J. “Jake” Gittes, a private detective asked to follow the husband of Evelyn Mulwray (played by Faye Dunaway). The husband is chief engineer the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Gittes finds himself caught in a chaotic spiral of corruption and violence, embodied by Evelyn's ruthless father, Noah Cross (John Huston).

Influenced by the fiction of Raymond Chandler, Towne resurrected the menace and mood of a classic Los Angeles film noir, but cast Gittes' labyrinthine odyssey across a grander and more insidious portrait of Southern California. Clues accumulate into a timeless detective tale, and lead helplessly to tragedy, summed up by the one of the most repeated lines in movie history, words of grim fatalism a devastated Gittes receives from his partner Lawrence Walsh (Joe Mantell): "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."

Towne's script has been a staple of film writing classes ever since, although it also serves as a lesson in how movies often get made and in the risks of crediting any film to a single viewpoint. He would acknowledge working closely with Polanski as they revised and tightened the story and arguing fiercely with the director over the film’s despairing ending — an ending Polanski pushed for and Towne later agreed was the right choice (No one has officially been credited for writing “Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown”).

But the concept began with Towne, who had turned down the chance to adapt “The Great Gatsby” for the screen so he could work on “Chinatown,” partly inspired by a book published in 1946, Carey McWilliams’ “Southern California: An Island on the Land.”

“In it was a chapter called ‘Water, water, water,’ which was a revelation to me. And I thought ‘Why not do a picture about a crime that’s right out in front of everybody,‘” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2009.

“Instead of a jewel-encrusted falcon, make it something as prevalent as water faucets, and make a conspiracy out of that. And after reading about what they were doing, dumping water and starving the farmers out of their land, I realized the visual and dramatic possibilities were enormous.”

The back story of “Chinatown” has itself become a kind of detective story, explored in producer Robert Evans’ memoir, “The Kid Stays in the Picture”; in Peter Biskind’s “East Riders, Raging Bulls,” a history of 1960s-1970s Hollywood, and in Sam Wasson’s “The Big Goodbye,” dedicated entirely to “Chinatown.” In “The Big Goodbye,” published in 2020, Wasson alleged that Towne was helped extensively by a ghost writer — former college roommate Edward Taylor. According to “The Big Goodbye,” for which Towne declined to be interviewed, Taylor did not ask for credit on the film because his “friendship with Robert” mattered more.

Wasson also wrote that the movie’s famous closing line originated with a vice cop who had told Towne that crimes in Chinatown were seldom prosecuted.

“Robert Towne once said that Chinatown is a state of mind,” Wasson wrote. “Not just a place on the map in Los Angeles, but a condition of total awareness almost indistinguishable from blindness. Dreaming you’re in paradise and waking up in the dark — that’s Chinatown. Thinking you’ve got it figured out and realizing you’re dead — that’s Chinatown.”

The studios assumed more power after the mid-1970s and Towne’s standing declined. His own efforts at directing, including “Personal Best” and “Tequila Sunrise,” had mixed results. “The Two Jakes,” the long-awaited sequel to “Chinatown,” was a commercial and critical disappointment when released in 1990 and led to a temporary estrangement between Towne and Nicholson.

Around the same time, he agreed to work on a movie far removed from the art-house aspirations of the ’70s, the Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer production “Days of Thunder,” starring Tom Cruise as a race car driver and Robert Duvall as his crew chief. The 1990 movie was famously over budget and mostly panned, although its admirers include Quentin Tarantino and countless racing fans.

Towne later worked with Cruise on “The Firm” and the first two “Mission: Impossible” movies. His most recent film was “Ask the Dust,” a Los Angeles story he wrote and directed that came out in 2006. Towne was married twice, the second time to Luisa Gaule, and had two children. His brother, Roger Towne, also wrote screenplays, his credits including “The Natural.”

Towne was born Robert Bertram Schwartz in Los Angeles and moved to San Pedro after his father’s business, a dress shop, closed down because of the Great Depression. (His father changed the family name to Towne). He had always loved to write and was inspired to work in movies by the proximity of the Warner Bros. Theater and from reading the critic James Agee. For a time, Towne worked on a tuna boat and would speak often of its impact.