Actress turned director Eva Longoria’s “Flamin’ Hot” is a lightly charming love letter to Mexican-American pluck, resolve and grace in the face of every obstacle that one’s adoptive country throws in your path.

Longoria and screenwriters Lewis Colick and Linda Yvette Chávez package that positive message of achievement against the odds in a story about the transformation of an American snack food and a Latino triumph in the war for the American palate.

And as I like to say when a movie is warm and cute and not literally the Gospel historical truth, if it’s not the way it really was, it’s the way it should have been.

Richard Montañez didn’t “invent” Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and the the world of “picante” food and drinks that swept the country years back and shows no signs of abating. “Flamin’ Hot” is not a true story in that sense.

But seeing as how the snack food giant Frito-Lay gave permission to use their brands, logo and factory processes in the film, I think they’re OK with this adorable mythologization of that “Eureka” moments in junk food. The product placement sealed the deal.

Jesse Garcia of TV’s “Snowfall” and “Narcos: Mexico” gives a charismatic performance playing a man who grew up farm labor poor, struggled to be accepted in school and when life wasn’t working out, got into drug dealing in his corner of SoCal.

Abused and put-down by his dad, profiled by white police and bullied at school, Richard learned an important life lesson in his elementary school cafeteria. If they’re calling you by ethnic slurs and berating your food, let the Palate of Your People speak for itself.

“Show them what the burrito’s worth.”

What child, biting into a savory Mexican delicacy for the first time, will ever settle for a bologna sandwich again? Maybe he’ll even figure out what the ingredients are and realize “Beaner” isn’t the insult he thinks it is.

“Flamin’ Hot” depicts Richard as a hustler from childhood, and a guy who made the right choices when the right girl — childhood sweetheart Judy — becomes the right woman and demands it of him.

A former fellow drug dealer (Bobby Soto) helps him land a job at Frito-Lay — with Judy (Annie Gonzalez, good, and in one magic moment, great) helping the high school drop-out fill out an application. His reading and writing in English isn’t up to par.

Once on board at the Rancho Cucamunga plant, janitor Richard makes the most of the opportunity by making a pest of himself. He “breaks the chain of command” by badgering and befriending (and bringing burritos to) the plant’s equipment engineer (Dennis Haysbert). Bigotry and the low expectations of his superiors don’t discourage him.

And when that plant is endangered during the Snack Wars of the ’90s, Richard shows his loyalty and pluck by enlisting his wife, their kids, his colleagues and his community in a Big Idea that might save it. He’s not shy about getting the president of the gigantic Pepsi/Frito-Lay parent company (Tony Shalhoub) on the phone to make his pitch.

Market to Mexicans! And give them red-hot chile chip options!

A clever touch in the screenplay has the ever-narrating Richard imagine board room battles at the company, translating those fights into cholo/gangster speak. Shalhoub is hilarious mouthing these “pendejo” throwdowns.

The voice of authority Haysbert plays the mentor who puts up with our irritating lead, bucks our hero up when he’s down and gives the movie a bit of gravitas.

And Gonzalez plays the woman of faith — in Richard, in the candle she lights and keeps burning after he lands the job that will transform them from poor-and-food-insecure to the working class. She stands up for him when he stands up to his found God/still-a-bully Dad (Emilio Rivera, excellent).

Longoria keeps her directing eyes on the “feel-good movie” prize, which limits the film’s ambition as we bounce from scene to uplifting scene, many of them involving adorable moppets taste-testing very hot chili sauces to bake into the Cheetohs.

The one real failing behind the camera is the film’s over-reliance on voice-over narration, the lazy screenwriter’s best amigo. Quotable, amusing and authoritative at times, here it’s so incessant that it practically turns “Flamin’ Hot” into a 100 minute version of those patriotic/ethnic-pride restoring Modelo beer commercials.

I mean, I love those commercials, with their proud and sentimental push-back against conservative prejudice and xenophobia. I even love the beer. But 100 minutes of that? Aye mami!

Rating: PG-13, profanity and brief drug material

Cast: Jesse Garcia, Annie Gonzalez, Emilio Rivera, Vanessa Martinez, Dennis Haysbert and Tony Shalhoub.

Credits: Directed by Eva Longoria, scripted by Lewis Colick and Linda Yvette Chávez. A Searchlight release on Hulu and Disney+.

Running time: 1:39