Flamin’ Hot, Eva Longoria’s feature directorial debut, is not a factual history of the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto—nor is it meant to be.
Instead, in diving into the story of Richard Montañez—the man who claims to have invented the cult favorite spicy snack—Flamin’ Hot tells an acutely human story of a man trying to break generational cycles and start life anew.
Releasing June 9 on both Hulu and Disney+ (becoming the first new movie to do so), Flamin’ Hot is based on Montañez’s first memoir, A Boy, a Burrito, and a Cookie: From Janitor to Executive. Jesse Garcia plays Montañez, unemployed and selling drugs before he was hired at Frito-Lay.
In Montañez’s telling, he invented a chile slurry with his family that would become the spice base for the eventual Flamin’ Hot Cheeto. Frito-Lay has denied these claims, according to the Los Angeles Times, citing interviews with former employees and the company’s archival record. But Flamin’ Hot worries less about these details and concentrates on the significance of Montañez’s story: While working for a company that largely kept Latinos out of the C-suite, he broke through with tenacity, tailoring the flavor to his community. In both the movie and real life, he climbed the chain of command, eventually becoming the vice president of multicultural sales and community promotions for PepsiCo.
Flamin’ Hot is, however, authentic when it comes to what its director, Longoria, has said matters most: cultural specificity. Linda Yvette Chávez, the co-writer of the film, thoroughly revised a draft of a script written by Lewis Colick into Longoria’s vision, massaging in the Chicano culture of Southern California in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s.
How Flamin’ Hot nails cholo and Chicano culture
Montañez never graduated high school—he was not…
