Flamin Hot – Chester Cheetah Found Dead!

The best true story put to film since Fargo.

Director Eva Longoria licks away the dust on this story that has been sitting on the shelf for over 30 years.

I wasn’t sure if this would be a good movie for me to review. But when President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill hosted a screening on the White House lawn, I knew this movie would be good enough for my audience (The last time the White House had been this flamin hot was August 24, 1814).

As I was snubbed an invite to the screening at the White House, I hosted my own private screening in the comfort of my living room. Being the bigger person, I extended the invite to the Bidens, but alas they couldn’t make it. Instead, I watched the film with my wife and dog, the latter of which slept through the entire movie. At first, I tried playing the film on Hulu, but as we have the ‘no ads’ version, the film was only a few minutes long. However, once I booted it up on Disney Plus, the full film was available.*

*because the entire film felt like a Cheetos commercial. All the best jokes need to be explained.

Regardless of the truthfulness of it, I enjoyed the story presented in the film, which is less about the invention of the Flamin Hot Cheeto and more about the racism and classism of corporate America (except for Tony Shalhoub’s character, the only “nice” executive).

The film does a great job at showing how in business people are defined into “classes” based on how much money they make. As a janitor, our protagonist is in the lowest class of them all. However, he is able to work his way up through determination, creative thinking, and befriending Dennis Haysbert.

The film does a good job at not taking itself too seriously, using frequent “imagination” sequences to add levity and “spice things up,” including a sequence where the main character attacks a guy with a mop. I didn’t see how this scene tied into the rest of the film, but it did make me laugh – as all mop related hijinks tend to do.

The main character’s voice-over did grate on me toward the start of the film, but at a certain point I got used to it and it stopped bothering me. Most of the film’s humor came from the voice over, and while I think it would have been funnier to see more physical gags rather than jokes in the narration, I won’t complain too much.

I for one, am not a fan of spicy food. Any degree of heat has me crying for milk and bread. I think if I was to partake in an episode of “Hot Ones” I would probably end up in the hospital. That said, I’ve never had Flamin Hot Cheetos, and I likely never will.

We certainly don’t need a feature length film about the creating of every food. But here’s a list of some I think would be good.

-Lost in the Maize: The Corn Story

-With Extra Cheese: Reinventing Pizza

-Twist and Shout: Pretzels!

-Vegetable

-The Impasta

I would watch any of these Jack Donaghy approved films.

I’d give this film about 6/10 Cheeto fingers. It certainly could be worse, and there was a lot to like about some of the creative choices and direction in the film. Overall, it just was not as entertaining as I was hoping for, and the story was a bit too unforgivingly capitalist for my taste. For next week’s review I’m heading back to my local Cinemark for a viewing of Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City. Don’t miss it.