Institute History
Description
In this hilarious sendup of the restaurant business, it is evident that writer/director/actor Mitch Hedberg has tackled the food-service industry head on and lived to make a movie about it. Los Enchiladas! gives heart and soul to the people behind the scenes, whose names you’ve never bothered to learn.
Los Enchiladas is one of the most successful Mexican chain restaurants in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, but on the eve of Cinco de Mayo, the busiest holiday of the year, things begin to fall apart. Don, the slimy manager, goes AWOL after he attacks a man wearing a gyro costume in his restaurant, and the chef skips out to find grander pastures in the world of menu poetry, which leaves prep cook Lee (Hedberg) in charge. Lee, the proud author of The Drifter’s Handbook, finally gets a chance to put his worldly knowledge, easygoing attitude, and rock ‘n’ roll music to good use, at least until the night shift comes on.
Hedberg does such a great job eliciting whimsical and subtle performances from the supporting cast that the characters appear to be plucked right from their respective professions . You don’t need to have worked in a restaurant (just eating in one is enough) to find the humor in the rehearsed greeting the hostess gives you or the waitress who cunningly talks you into a high-priced appetizer. This low-budget, midwestern comedy sets out to prove that restaurant workers are not all slackers; some are just feasting on life before settling down.
Mitch Hedberg, Director
Mitch Hedberg has been a stand-up comic for nine years. In 1996 he received a network development deal at the Montreal Comedy Festival. He decided to put the last quarter of the cash he made to good use by directing and producing a script he had worked on in bits and pieces for four years. He has appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman three times. Los Enchiladas! is his first film.