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Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, A

EMAILPRINTFirst Look Pictures Releasing

Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, A reviews
67
7.0 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 25 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 17 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Crime  |  Drama

Written by: Dito Montiel

Directed by: Dito Montiel

Release Date:
Theatrical: September 29, 2006
DVD: February 20, 2007

Running Time: 98 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: R for pervasive language, some violence, sexuality, and drug use

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Rosario Dawson, Shia LaBeouf, Chazz Palminteri, Dianne Wiest, Channing Tatum, and Eric Roberts

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is writer/director Dito Montiel's candid debut capturing his youth in the mid-1980s in the toughest neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. Exuding the rawness and authenticity of such classic urban dramas as "Kids," "Mean Streets," "Do the Right Thing" and "Saturday Night Fever," the film is based on Montiel's memoir of the same name. (First Look Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

90

Film Threat Don R. Lewis

Downey Jr. and LaBeouf as Dito as well as Chazz Palminteri as Monty are outstanding. Channing Tatum (who I've never heard of) is also amazing as the tortured soul Antonio.

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88

Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves

The movie is awash in great performances by actors known and otherwise.

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83

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

This gallantly imperfect indie pops with attitude.

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80

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

It's forceful and alive and spilling over with crazy poetry.

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80

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

In "A Guide," passion and imagination go a long way in transforming seemingly conventional material and characters.

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80

The New York Times A.O. Scott

hough the picture is wrenching, at times devastating, it leaves you with that buoyant feeling of having encountered a raw, authentic work of art.

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80

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

This is an exceptionally assured debut, and Montiel exhibits rare care with editing and sound design. His real forte, though, is casting, to which a brief scene featuring Downey and the incandescent Rosario Dawson powerfully attests.

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75

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Compelling.

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75

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Most viewers will discover this picture - and it is worth discovering - when it is released on DVD.

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75

New York Post Lou Lumenick

This is a gifted director who actually has something to say and knows how to say it. We'll be hearing from him again.

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75

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Scenemaker Dito Montiel's rough, grating memoir of growing up in a poor, violent section of Astoria, Queens, in the mid-1980s features a few too many arty flourishes, but also packs a raw power that's hard to shake.

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70

Slate Dana Stevens

Like the boys, Montiel's first film is rough and uneven, with more energy than it knows what to do with. But it still manages to feel fresh and authentic, perhaps because it's so deeply autobiographical.

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67

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The film feels like an earnest retread over old territory, albeit one that intermittently comes to life thanks to an amazing cast, expressive cinematography by French master Eric Gautier (Irma Vep), and Montiel's obviously heartfelt sentiments.

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67

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

One of the American cinema's rare excursions into pure autobiography: the movie is Montiel's own coming-of-age story, with little or nothing disguised as fiction.

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67

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is inchoate, but it demonstrates that instincts and brio can compensate for a lot.

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63

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

As it dips in and out of the boys' lives, and occasionally wanders back to the contemporary Dito surveying the old neighbourhood, Saints never really integrates its two time periods.

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63

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The first-time filmmaker aspires to show us what caused him to leave his neighborhood and stay gone for 20 years. All I can really glean is that the place was too loud.

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63

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The framing sequences with Downey and the climactic scenes between father and son are a mess. Downey, at 41, is too old to be playing a character who can be no more than 31 or 32, and 50-year-old Eric Roberts is an even greater distraction as Montiel's imprisoned friend Antonio.

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63

Premiere Glenn Kenny

For my money, if I'm in the mood for the kind of aesthetic and emotional experience Saints is selling, I'll just blast Jim Carroll's more concise (and rocking!) "People Who Died" out of my iPod.

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60

Variety Robert Koehler

Writer-director Montiel creates a movie of many parts that don't always congeal. Mix this with the many meaty scenes and a roster of often exceptional actors and the effect is one of a fabulous acting showcase more than a wholly finished work.

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60

Village Voice Rob Nelson

Whatever the first-time filmmaker lacks in subtlety and finesse--not even the snow-white Sundance Screenwriters Lab could bleach Montiel's script of its corner-deli grit--he recoups by other, more playfully attitudinal means.

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60

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Given all the filmed memory pieces about screaming, violent Italian-American families in New York boroughs, I'm not especially thrilled by even a well-made example.

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50

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

The story of Dito escaping and then facing his demons is meaningful. But that story is so buried in actorly noise that it feels false.

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50

The Hollywood Reporter Duane Byrge

After a while, the crudeness and venality of the central characters proves as stifling as the incessant Queens summer heat does to our dubious protagonists.

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50

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

I suspect this guy can make a good movie if he learns the right lessons; he's made about half of one here. But the praise heaped upon A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is way too much, way too soon.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 17 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Lief S. gave it an8:
Trying best I can not to be bias, having the movie take place in the place I grew up myself; I have to give the movie an 8. I deducted two points for really little things such as catching a few geographical flaws like the trains going the wrong way and the wrong lines of the trains; this is extremely small but as the movie was so realistic; they should have noticed this and also some scenes just ran for a little too long; the actual movie length was fine but just certain conversations like Downy Jr. in the car with his friend could have been cut shorter.

Norm D. gave it a3:
This movie is hilariously bad. Another example of an unintelligent, ignorant auteur/author mistaking his trite past for poetry. Another story of stupid people doing stupid things. At least, it was original when scorcese did it in mean streets.

Chad S. gave it a9:
If you don't think off-color language can sound beautiful, just listen to the way these Queens teens(especially the girls) spout f-bombs and racial epithets in their Astoria wonderland of hormonal urges and premature bloodlettings. "A Guide to Recognizing your Saints" can sometimes be self-consciously arty, but this writer/director overcomes his indulgences by coaxing great performances from a group of young actors(especially Channing Tatum and Melonie Diaz) who know how to walk and talk like bad asses with just the right dollop of humanity. Like Sally Potter's "The Tango Lesson", the filmmaker(played by Robert Downey Jr.) is the protagonist, which can be a risky move because people will automatically label you a narcissist. Well, in "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints", the successful artist, the guy who left the borough; reunites with the guy who became a bum, the guy who went to prison, and the girl who had a kid. So yes, the filmmaker can't escape the perception that he's preening a little, but Downey saves his ass by looking genuinely humble and saddened by the people he left behind. This writer/director has talent. Look for the edit that transitions the contemporary Laurie(Rosario Dawson) into yesterday Laurie(Diaz), looking outside her tenement window for the guy(Shia LeBeouf) who could've changed her life. It's breathtaking, like most of this electrifying coming-of-age story that gives personal filmmaking a good name.

Marco gave it a10:
Unbelievably beauty, strange poetics, daring choices of voices filtering over scenes and a story that is hard to follow, but draws you in enough to blow your mind away in the end. It seems at time out of balance, but that is the beauty of it. and for some really weird reason, the ending, the compassion, the sincere deeply heartfelt empathy made me even shed a tear.

Matt K. gave it a9:
Moments of such brillant authenticity with moments of stilted drama. Really good movie. I was a little surprised. Lots of great performances especially from the young cast. If it wasn't for some of the awkward later moments this would be one of the best films of the year. Check it out.

Amanda W. gave it a9:
This movie was a convincing portrayal of the youth in Queens in the mid 1980s. Labeouf and Downy Jr. are amazing.

Steve S. gave it a10:
One of the Years Best and most violently thoughtful films. Amazing performances from Chazz Palminteri, Dianne Wiest, and surprisingly, Channing Tatum.

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