A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
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Movie Reviews of A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Movie Review: A coming-of-age drama much like A Bronx Tale and Sleepers
Summary: 4 Stars
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is based on the autobiography of Dito Montiel, and is also written and directed by him. It's a coming of age story that takes place in 1986 and 2006 about Dito and his friends. Shia LaBeouf and Robert Downey, Jr. play Dito as a teenager and an adult, respectively. It's basically a movie about how they navigated their way through the trials that come with living in a place where they might get stuck, and could get stuck, because of crime, family, a lack of motivation. Growing up in an inner city neighborhood, Dito's friends all met different ends: some went to jail, others got hooked on drugs, some became single parents. The story is told using flashbacks, which can be disconcerting at times, but if you look beyond that I think you'll see that this is a really interesting, coming-of-age story that's worth watching. Be sure to watch through the credits to see the clip that's tacked on at the end. If you liked the movies A Bronx Tale and Sleepers, I'm pretty sure you'll like A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints as well.Movie Review: Recognizing Your Saints
Summary: 4 Stars
Fabulous acting by everyone, but the story jumped around a bit (flashbacks) and was a little difficult to follow at times. Robert Downey Jr., Channing Tatum and Shia LaBeouf were especially a treat to watch. Movie Review: 3 Stars For Stabbing Too Deep Into The Depressive Soul, For Too Long.
Summary: 3 Stars
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is a bullseye 1980's inner-city drama that gets right inside the dysfunctional household of a family paralyzed by the lifestyle of living paycheck to paycheck in a neighborhood whose mean streets are harmless behind a good door that's got a good lock. In reality these types of neighborhoods of the 80's that were dominated by tough-skinned teen-agers whose summers left them wandering the streets aimlessly reverting to violence to fill the lonely, depressing hours. Everyone of the actors and actresses in this film deserve acolades for their performances. Everyone of them, and most of them are young but they're skill of dramatizing this era was almost perfect. Robert Downey Jr., did a very good portraying a depressed adult product of a teen-ager who just barely escaped the dangers of his hood, and having to do so at the guilt of a co-dependant dad and mom without say had to be hardest things to take on simultaneously but the one reason I didn't rate this film a personal 5 was because Robert Downey Jr.'s personal life has had so much tumultuity in it that he's almost typecast into this movie. My personal advice for Robert Downey jr. is to stay away from depressive roles on TV or the big screen. I think it would be cool for RDJ to play a guy who builds motorcycles and ends up winning a biker build-off.. that would be a gritty role, motorcycles are cool and loveable, and a positive ending would fit nicely now for Robert. Think about it Robert, and cast Paul Tuetul Sr. oh, and me!! Sign me up. 3 solid Stars... A good movie to see, but be prepared to be depressed throughout the entire watch!
Gerard\
g4theweb@aol.com
Movie Review: Acting at it's best!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
"Guide" is a coming of age story about Dito Montiel. This is his true story of life in Queens. How his life changed, developed, and was moved by the people who were and are in his life. This movie can not be explained to regular words, but trust me when I say YOU HAVE GOT TO SEE THIS MOVIE!!! I watched it and I am forever inspired and in awe of his wisdom.
The casting is great! Initially I wanted to see it because watching Robert Downey Jr. (Mature beauty) and Channing Tatum (Young Beauty) is a dream come true, but after seeing it all the way through it was a well-played wonderful cast. Shia did a wonderful job lead the cast through the life of Dito. They had a chemistry that I saw on-scene and in the outtakes was noticable. The movie itself was done wonderfully!! I really enjoyed it.
****Warning***** Lots of cursing and violence, but very true to life stories.
Movie Review: One of the True Sleepers of the Year
Summary: 5 Stars
A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS may not be on everyone's list of great films of 2006 but it most assuredly should be. In a time when the bulk of films that come across the marquis are empty headed fluff (with of course notable exceptions), little films like this autobiographical coming of age story in Queens in the 1980s by the accomplished yet very humble Dito Montiel make an initial impact on the viewer, then hang around the psyche with memories of cinematic moments as well as fresh looks at our own lives like few other films can achieve.
Dito Montiel wrote his memoir, adapted it for the screen and directed it, each step being a first one for this very talented young man. His story on the surface is simple: a childhood and coming of age of Dito and his friends as they face the crime and drugs and love affairs and deaths of living in the line of poverty. Dito (an astonishingly fine Shia LaBeouf) has a cadre of friends that include Scottish Mike (Martin Compston), crazy Nerf (Peter Anthony Tambakis), firebrand Antonio (Channing Tatum in yet another fiery and sensitive performance), Antonio's unfortunate brother Giuseppe (Adam Scarimbolo), and girls Laurie (Melonie Diaz) and Diane (Julia Garro). The boys face gang trouble with the Puerto Rican gang Reapers, parental abuse as in Antonio's father (Federico Castelluccio), parental love as with Dito's parents Monty (Chazz Palminteri) and Flori (Dianne Wiest).
As their world in Queens comes tumbling down with tragic consequences Dito decides to leave for California. And leave he does, not returning for twenty years to the place where he successfully survived a childhood due to the 'saints' he didn't recognize until the father with whom he has not communicated in the interim has reached his end. The past and the present are woven together throughout the film with the flash forward, flash back sequences: the older successful writer Dito is played by Robert Downey, Jr.; Antonio (imprisoned for his beating death of the head of the Reapers) is Eric Roberts; Laurie now married is Rosario Dawson; Nerf now is Scott Michael Campbell: and Dito's parents remain makeup-aged Palminteri and Wiest. It is this blend of the past as revealed by the present that makes Montiel's film work so well. They manner in which he creates the magic of near extemporaneous speech with this amazing cast creates a sense of grit, verismo, and profound love and loss. Conversations such as the ones between little Dito and Monty, between the mature Dito and Flori and Lauri and Antonio - all are minor miracles of writing and acting. Montiel may be a first time director but he has drawn some of the finest work ever from Palminteri, Wiest, Downey, Dawson, Tatum, Roberts and LaBoeuf.
For those who have read Montiel's book by the same name, the time Dito spent in East Village and his fame as a Calvin Klein underwear model will seem painfully missing. But Montiel has extracted the essence of a boy growing out of his environment with the help of his unknown saints, condensed the action, and told the story in a magical way - a way that is sure to drive into the gut and heart of every sensitive viewer. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, February 07