A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints Movie Review

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006)

Rent A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints on Amazon Video
Written by: Dito Montiel (book), Dito Montiel
Directed by: Dito Montiel
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Rosario Dawson, Shia LaBeouf, Dianne Wiest, Channing Tatum, Chazz Palminteri, Melonie Diaz
Rated: R
Watch the trailer

Plot
A coming-of-age drama about a boy growing up in Astoria, New York during the 1980s. As his friends end up dead, on drugs, or in prison, he believes he was been saved from their fates by various so-called saints.

Verdict
I wouldn't have imagined Robert Downey Jr. and Shia LaBeouf could play the same character but it surprisingly works. Downey recalls his youth as played by Shia, it's a movie steeped in nostalgia wandering aimlessly in the New York streets. Somehow he escaped the neighborhood alive while his friends weren't so lucky. That life feels genuine, but the movie doesn't do quite enough.
It depends.

Review
Downey plays the adult Dito, reading his autobiography about his days in New York. Dito escaped the New York life and found success, but none of his friends did. He's never been back, and despite his father's deteriorating health he's reluctant to see those ghosts from his youth again. He doesn't want to face the people about whom he wrote or to see how their lives turned out being stuck in the neighborhood.

Most of the movie takes place in the '80s when Dito was a teen. It feels realistic and honest. The kids look ragtag and rough, like it's more than makeup that has them appear dirty and disheveled. The casting did a great job of with young and old versions of the characters.

The conceit in Dito's autobiography is that his friends acted as saints to guide him. It wasn't their direct influence. Dito was a good kid, and that has to be attributed to his parents despite how he and his father would clash. Dito feels like his dad favored Dito's friend Antonio. Adult Dito even asks his father if he liked Antonio more. While watching this, I didn't get that feeling. It was openly stated that Antonio's father beat him. Dito's dad was trying to be a father figure to Antonio, unfortunately Dito didn't realize what his father was trying to do. Dito's dad was hoping to be a positive force in Antonio's life, but Antonio was violent due to circumstance.
Antonio's brother kills himself, and while the movie doesn't address it I wonder if that's due to abuse.

Dito finally goes home, facing all these childhood emotions he's avoided for so long. He has to address them now, realizing how much his youth shaped him.