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A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

Review By: Clayton Davis
ClaytonDavis@TheCinemaSource.com

There comes a time when motion pictures take an extraordinary turn, when and where that happens is irrelevant, although recently I’ve experienced a breathtaking turn in film making. The name of the experience is A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. First time director Dito Montiel created, based on own occurrences and adapted from his book, a personal picture engulfed in beautiful undertones of love, regret and forgiveness.

The film is sculpted by a powerful screenplay by Montiel and an incredible cast who captured the best ensemble award from the coveted Sundance Film Festival. The film stars Academy Award nominees Robert Downey, Jr. and Chazz Palminteri, Oscar winner, Dianne Weist and a slew of incredible and upcoming talent coming from Shia LeBeouf, Rosario Dawson, Channing Tatum and Melonie Diaz. The movie parallels us through a downward spiral of daily entities and a burrow of absolution and adversity.

The movie cuts in and out of the years 2005 and 1986 and both center around Dito Montiel, a young Queens-born Italian trying to cope with the everyday hard streets of crime, prejudice and premature passion. In 2005 Dito lives away from his family and is contacted by his mother to return home to care for his ill and medically stubborn father. Robert Downey, Jr. plays the multi-layered character who carries the weight of the world on his heart. Dito’s pain is so deep that he can’t even believe or conceive a start to come to terms with it. Downey, Jr. has been making a strong comeback for his career and when he pulls in outstanding performances like this it reestablishes his talent. Shia LeBeouf portrays the young Dito in 1986 and pulls in one of the most riveting performances ever performed by a younger actor. LeBeouf shows you what it means not only to play a role but to inhabit it. Dito may seem flawless at times as he grows up and surrounds himself by his compatriots, but when he falls into temptation and wants the escape into an unrestrained humanity we see a true idol emerge.

Dito’s humanity is threatened by local thugs such as the Puerto Rican, Reefer and his relationship with his adverse father played by Palminteri. Throughout the film you see Dito trying to self-improve his life through conversations about relocating, expanding his friends with the new foreign student Mike and learning more about himself than he intends at his age. His circle of friends include the three “free-spirited” teenage girls from the neighborhood, his abused and violent friend Antonio, (Channing Tatum) the little man, Nerf, and Antonio’s dazed younger brother Giuseppe. Dito searches for love with one of the ladies (Melonie Diaz [young] Rosario Dawson ([old]) who captures the essence of innocence lost in between adolescence and the alleyway.

What can viewers take away from the ...