Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
68
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
xx
Ninja Assassin
xx
Old Dogs
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
xx
Princess & the Frog, The
53
Road, The
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
45
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum
56
Adam
39
Adventures of Power
66
Afterschool
73
Amreeka
49
Antichrist
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The
71
Big Fan
65
Black Dynamite
76
Bliss
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star
78
Broken Embraces
70
Bronson
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
60
Collapse
82
Cove, The
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The
53
Dare
50
Defamation
67
Departures
70
Earth Days
85
Education, An
55
Endgame
88
Fantastic Mr. Fox
31
Fix
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Horse Boy, The
74
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
43
Little Traitor, The
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
46
Love Hurts
84
Maid, The
50
Mammoth
75
Messenger, The
55
Missing Person, The
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
48
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
26
Oh My God
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Red Cliff
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
65
Skin
41
Splinterheads
42
Staten Island
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
58
Storm
82
Sun, The
49
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73
That Evening Sun
61
Trucker
49
Turning Green
83
U2 3D
45
Uncertainty
67
Visual Acoustics
32
War on Kids
67
Way We Get By, The
65
Wedding Song, The
xx
White on Rice
59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
Woman in Berlin, A
43
Women in Trouble
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, A
EMAILPRINTFirst Look Pictures Releasing
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 25 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 17 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
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)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
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...
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.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves
The movie is awash in great performances by actors known and otherwise.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
This gallantly imperfect indie pops with attitude.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
It's forceful and alive and spilling over with crazy poetry.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
In "A Guide," passion and imagination go a long way in transforming seemingly conventional material and characters.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Most viewers will discover this picture - and it is worth discovering - when it is released on DVD.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is inchoate, but it demonstrates that instincts and brio can compensate for a lot.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
