Flamin' Hot: Style and sizzle

Flamin' Hot (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for brief profanity and fleeting drug use

Available via: Disney+ and Hulu

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.9.23

I know what you’re thinking:

 

An entire feature film, focused solely on the creation of a snack food? Could this be anything but a 99-minute valentine to PepsiCo/Frito-Lay?

 

Judy (Annie Gonzalez), Richard (Jesse Garcia) and their elder son Lucky (Hunter Jones)
watch suspensefully, as younger son Steven (Brice Gonzalez) carefully tastes the
family's newest effort at an acceptably spicy Cheeto.

Actually … yes.

Thanks to director Eva Longoria’s enthusiastic approach, Lewis Colick and Linda Yvette Chávez’s cheeky script, and an always endearing performance by star Jesse Garcia, this fast-paced, rags-to-riches saga is quite entertaining: an inspirational, modern-day Horatio Alger story come to life.

 

On the other hand, the film’s claim to be a “true story” — as the press notes insist —should be taken with a raised eyebrow.

 

To quote the oft-repeated phrase from John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Longoria and her writers clearly embraced that notion (about which, we’ll chat more in a bit).

 

Richard Montañez (Garcia) narrates his life-story, in amiable conversational voice-over, from a current-day vantage point. One of a multitude of children born into a Mexican American enclave in Southern California’s unincorporated community of Guasti, he grows up surrounded by the East Los Angeles vineyards where his family and their friends toil in those fields.

 

He also confronts institutional racism at an early age (played here by Carlos S. Sanchez), both in grade school and elsewhere. He meets Judy (Jayde Martinez), who shares his heritage; they become “two against the world.”

 

Flash-forward several years. Richard (now Garcia) has joined local gang-bangers led by longtime best friend Tony (Bobby Soto). Although a life in and out of prison seems inevitable, Richard’s devotion to Judy (now played by Annie Gonzalez) — they soon have two young sons — and a compassionate judge grant one last chance.

 

Better still, Tony — who also has “gone straight,” with a menial job at Frito-Lay — puts in a good word. During Richard’s subsequent interview, floor manager Lonny Mason (Matt Walsh) — despite quickly spotting the young man’s fabricated résumé — reluctantly hires him as a general utility machine operator (i.e. janitor). Richard promises to show grit, determination and a never-quit, can-do spirit.

 

On top of which, he comes armed with the magical powers of authentic Mexican food.

 

The latter comes in handy when Richard seeks guidance from longtime production engineer Clarence C. Baker (Dennis Haysbert). This disgruntled company veteran initially is suspicious of the young man’s enthusiasm, having spent years training people who then were promoted over him … likely for similarly racist reasons.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For — Not nearly sinful enough

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated R, for nudity, sexual content, brief drug use and relentless strong violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.5.14

Nine years is a long time to wait for a sequel, particularly one with interlinked stories that weave in and around the first film’s similarly interconnected narrative.

Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) roars into Sin City, a man on a mission. He's determined to
out-play the local power-monger during a high-stakes poker game ... but, in fact, Johnny
also has a lot more on his mind. What else would drive such a flashy young man to such
suicidal behavior?

My memory isn’t up to that challenge. And I’d argue that a film’s potential success shouldn’t rest on a viewer’s willingness to embark on deep research, in order to have a better idea of what’s going on.

But that isn’t the only problem with Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, once again adapted by comic book impresario Frank Miller, from his macabre and über-cynical Sin City graphic novel series. The far bigger flaw is that Miller obviously cherry-picked his best stories for the first film, whereas this one is laden with leftovers and sloppy seconds.

The result is a common cinematic disease: all style and very little substance.

To be sure, Miller and gonzo co-director Robert Rodriguez once again deliver the material with the seamy, amped-up decadence and hard-bitten dialogue that will amuse fans of 1940s and ’50s film noir classics. The atmosphere oozes with scandal: the tough guys hard as granite (literally); the dames, floozies and femme fatales straight out of Hammett and Chandler ... assuming, of course, that their women would have pranced about in cleavage-enhancing goth/punk corsets and garters. Or nothing at all.

But do bear in mind — as with the first film — that only the actors are real here; the rest is CGI fabrication. That means all the buildings and streets in (Ba)sin City, not to mention all the action scenes, car chases and death-with-prejudice fist fights, maimings, decapitations and defenestrations, not to mention samurai-style limb slicing and arrows through eyeballs. No more “real” than the gladiator nonsense of 300 and its recent sequel.

As further befitting the material’s noir sensibilities, this is a primarily black-and-white universe, aside from occasional splashes of red (lipstick, blood) or full color, the latter generally employed — with heavy irony — to suggest a character’s innocence.

This is deliberate, of course; the goal is to bring Miller’s savage comic book artwork and sensibilities to the screen. Literally. He and Rodriguez once again succeed, catching the feverish artistic vitality that crackles like heat lightning on every one of Miller’s blasphemously violent pages.

But our potential engagement with the results — as always is the case with live-action movies, as well — depends upon engaging characters and compelling storylines.

And that’s where this sequel falls flat.