The best movies are about real-life stories, a comment repeated in this blog many times over the last 8+ years.
The new Hulu movie “Flamin’ Hot” is a real-life story about a very poor and beaten down but proud Mexican man Richard Montañez, played very well by Jesse Garcia, who started as a janitor at Frito Lay in the 1980s and was so appreciative of having any job to provide for his family (a wife and 2 sons), that he worked harder than anybody in the company. After several years of hard work, and being treated with rudeness and disrespect by management, Richard had one idea about new spicy hot chips and Cheetos that tapped a new unknown market in the Latin community. Nobody had ever had this idea before, but it was Richard’s idea that generated enormous sales for Frito Lay. I was happy to see in the end, the company did right by Richard and gave him a huge promotion and a high-paying job. This is a real-life Rocky story and for the millions of us who have been treated badly as an employee of large corporations, this story provides inspiration and hope for so many who every day, dream of a better life, somehow, someday, our day will come. We will be appreciated, finally.
Richard’s mentor within Frito Lay is Clarence C. Baker, played very well by Dennis Haysbert. It was nice to see someone in management, reach out and treat a low-paid and disrespected Mexican Janitor with respect and listen to his ideas and his opinions. How many people have we seen in our lives who have true empathy for someone struggling just to survive? I thought this relationship was the best part of this movie along with Richard’s wife Judy Montañez, is played by Annie Gonzalez and she is outstanding in her role as a Mexican wife doing anything to help and support her husband.
The message of this story is another great part of this film. "We are all worthy of respect, and our opinions have merit."
The actor Eva Longoria directed this very good movie, in her first outing as a director. Tony Shalhoub is also great as the CEO of Frito Lay Roger Enrico.
The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie are a stupidly low 68% – entirely missing the point of this true story, with my rating a solid 85% and strong recommendation.
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