All character and little substance, A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS is saved from film depravity by some stellar performances within the fairly pedestrian life-story of Dito Montiel, a kid growing up in a rough-and-tumble Queens suburb during the 1980s.
Based on the memoir-cum-vignettes novel by the same name (written by Dito, who also directed and wrote the screenplay), the movie's premise surrounds Dito (Robert Downey Jr., GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK) as a young wannabe ruffian dealing with an overbearing father, a distant mother, and four friends destined for things much worse than mediocrity. Living in New York, Dito finds himself inserted into a life which he desperately wants out of. This comes full-on into focus when a new student at his school named Mike O'Shea (Martin Compston) begins talking about leaving the city for California.
Dito constantly sees his life slipping into the Queens rut, a life that promises either a worthless job with a girl not of his ethnicity (prejudice rears its ugly head often in the film's dialogue), or into a life of street gang membership, or a life in prison, or worse death. Most of these dangers lurk around his best friend Antonio (Channing Tatum), whom Dito's father Monty (played brilliantly by the usually typecast mobster, Chazz Palminteri, HOODWINKED!) views as the epitome of what his son should be: a tough kid who's dedicated to his family and his neighborhood.
The film begins and ends with Dito (Downey Jr.) talking to an audience about his novel, A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints. In between we get to witness what transpired in Dito's life to make him want to write about his experiences in Queens. Shia LaBeouf (THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED) plays the adolescent Dito and does so in fine fashion, making the audience cheer when he finally comes out to his father about his desire to leave The City, and cringing when he returns and we learn that his saints have all been left behind in various stages of inadequacy (Antonio remains in prison, while Nerf still lives with his mother and drinks like a fish).
The most impressive part of the film is that the characters are all portrayed exceptionally well. Chazz Palminteri gives one of the best performances of his life as a humble Queens resident with epilepsy. When he and his son get into one of their final battles, it's both heart-wrenching and frightening. We feel Chazz's character's need to keep his son nearby, but also understand Dito's life necessity to get away no matter what the cost.
It is a poignant irony that Dito returns to Queens in order to see his ailing father and to face up to his abandonment of his parents, his friends, and his hometown. The dichotomy between what he had to give up to become successful and his desire to both stay away from it and yet return to it is this movie's greatest strength.
But if the characters were the positive, the story itself was rather lackadaisical. There are punctuating moments of intensity (Antonio with a baseball bat and Mike O'Shea's terrible end both come to mind), but the overlapping dialogue, depressing sets, and overall screenplay were seriously wanting. Even so, the awesome performances by all of the cast members pull this story up by its sagging bootstraps and give it a positive rating.
Based on the memoir-cum-vignettes novel by the same name (written by Dito, who also directed and wrote the screenplay), the movie's premise surrounds Dito (Robert Downey Jr., GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK) as a young wannabe ruffian dealing with an overbearing father, a distant mother, and four friends destined for things much worse than mediocrity. Living in New York, Dito finds himself inserted into a life which he desperately wants out of. This comes full-on into focus when a new student at his school named Mike O'Shea (Martin Compston) begins talking about leaving the city for California.
Dito constantly sees his life slipping into the Queens rut, a life that promises either a worthless job with a girl not of his ethnicity (prejudice rears its ugly head often in the film's dialogue), or into a life of street gang membership, or a life in prison, or worse death. Most of these dangers lurk around his best friend Antonio (Channing Tatum), whom Dito's father Monty (played brilliantly by the usually typecast mobster, Chazz Palminteri, HOODWINKED!) views as the epitome of what his son should be: a tough kid who's dedicated to his family and his neighborhood.
The film begins and ends with Dito (Downey Jr.) talking to an audience about his novel, A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints. In between we get to witness what transpired in Dito's life to make him want to write about his experiences in Queens. Shia LaBeouf (THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED) plays the adolescent Dito and does so in fine fashion, making the audience cheer when he finally comes out to his father about his desire to leave The City, and cringing when he returns and we learn that his saints have all been left behind in various stages of inadequacy (Antonio remains in prison, while Nerf still lives with his mother and drinks like a fish).
The most impressive part of the film is that the characters are all portrayed exceptionally well. Chazz Palminteri gives one of the best performances of his life as a humble Queens resident with epilepsy. When he and his son get into one of their final battles, it's both heart-wrenching and frightening. We feel Chazz's character's need to keep his son nearby, but also understand Dito's life necessity to get away no matter what the cost.
It is a poignant irony that Dito returns to Queens in order to see his ailing father and to face up to his abandonment of his parents, his friends, and his hometown. The dichotomy between what he had to give up to become successful and his desire to both stay away from it and yet return to it is this movie's greatest strength.
But if the characters were the positive, the story itself was rather lackadaisical. There are punctuating moments of intensity (Antonio with a baseball bat and Mike O'Shea's terrible end both come to mind), but the overlapping dialogue, depressing sets, and overall screenplay were seriously wanting. Even so, the awesome performances by all of the cast members pull this story up by its sagging bootstraps and give it a positive rating.