A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
By Mal Simons, Blockbuster.co.uk

“In the end - just like I said - I left everything, and everyone. But no one, no one has ever left me.”

Based on the life of Dito Montiel, who wrote and directed this autobiographical film; A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is an unmissable coming of age story telling how he survived as a boy, the mean streets of Queens New York in the 1980s. With an all star cast that includes Robert Downey Jr, Shia LaBeouf and Rosario Dawson; this film went on to win two awards at both the Sundance and Venice Film Festivals.

Told from the perspective of an old Dito Montiel (played by Robert Downey Jr), the film begins in the present, Dito, long separated from his family is contacted by his mother to be told that his father is sick, and she begs him to come back home. Deciding to travel back home, Dito starts to remember growing up in Queens in the eighties.

Flash back to July 1986, and the film introduces us to Dito (this time played by Shia LaBeouf), a seemingly normal teenager growing up in raw and gritty Queens’ Astoria. The neighbourhood is divided by race with a particular divide existing between the Hispanics and the working class people of the neighbourhood.

A normal summer day for Dito is for him to hang out with his mates and play video games, get drunk together, and pick up neighbourhood girls. Unfortunately for Dito, the entire neighbourhood is tense with the various communities at each other’s throats. The sticky heatwave of the year does little to calm things down and the whole place is a powderkeg ready to go off. It is not long before tensions between his friends and a group of Puerto Rican guys escalates into violence with a running vendetta between them.

At home, Dito finds himself at odds with a loving but not understanding father (Chazz Palminteri), who is out of touch with his son’s reality and increasingly isolated from his best friend Antonio (Channing Tatum), who at times appears closer to his father’s way of thinking than himself. It is when Dito meets Scottish exchange student Mike O’Shea (Martin Compston), that things start to change; he realises that there is life outside of Queens’ New York and finds a passion for music and writing. The two of them become close friends which in turn creates additional tension between himself and Antonio.

When Antonio overreacts to an attack on Dito, events start to spiral out of all control to the point where there is blood on the streets; as the tragedy unfolds and Dito’s world crumbles all around him, he gradually begins to realise that he must get out of Queens’ and head to California to survive.

Writer and first time director Dito Montiel has produced an amazing film – not so much an adaptation of his autobiographical novel but instead a continuation of the story from his book (given that the film mentions that Dito’s work has now been published). Masterfully cutting between the drama of the past with the drama of the future; the filmmaker has brought together some of Hollywood’s greatest starts past and present to create what is quite frankly a masterpiece of the coming of age genre.

A film that will not be for everyone due to the language and content of the movie (Queens’ Astoria, NY was not exactly the most politically correct place in 1986); this is a fantastic movie with a great cast which is much deserving of your attention. Fans of films like Sleepers, Boogie Nights or The Basketball Diaries will love this film; one of the best coming of age tales we’ve ever seen. Add to your list now.

Perfect Partners:
Sleepers
Boogie Nights
Basketball Diaries

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