A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

One of the smash hits at the Sundance Film Festival—winning both the Special Jury Prize and the Best Director Award—A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints chronicles the adolescent years of Dito Montiel. Based on his autobiography, and directed by Montiel himself, the film is a personal and uncompromising portrait of street life in Astoria, New York during the 1980s. Dito (Shia LaBeouf) wants desperately to leave his neighborhood and move out to California, and this desire increases as more and more of his friends get either locked up or killed. He argues with his girlfriend on numerous occasions and eventually becomes estranged from his own father (Chazz Palminteri). Woven throughout these unpleasant years are scenes of the present day Dito (Robert Downey, Jr.) as he travels back home from California to confront his past. As a first-time director, Montiel shows a little promise and a lot of inexperience. He’s able to get a few good performances out of his actors (particularly Channing Tatum, who plays Dito’s hot-tempered friend Antonio), but most of his stylistic choices are unnecessary and actual lessen the quality of the film. The script is also lacking in many respects, and while much of the film was likely improvised, it still comes down to most of the characters yelling at each other, in almost every scene, for no real reason. As a result, there are several times when the film actually approaches levels of annoyance. It wouldn’t seem nearly as bad if the actors had anything remotely interesting to say during the quieter moments, but they don’t.

Directed by Dito Montiel.
Written by Dito Montiel.
Starring Shia LaBeouf, Robert Downey, Jr., Rosario Dawson, Chazz Palminteri, Dianne Wiest, Channing Tatum and Eric Roberts.

Rated R for pervasive language, some violence, sexuality, and drug use. 98 min.

** so says The Fish