IMDb > A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006)
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
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A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006) More at IMDbPro »

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A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006) -- The movie is a coming-of-age drama about a boy growing up in Astoria, N.Y., during the 1980s. As his friends end up dead, on drugs or in prison, he comes to believe he has been saved from their fate by various so-called saints.
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006) -- The movie is a coming-of-age drama about a boy growing up in Astoria, N.Y., during the 1980s. As his friends end up dead, on drugs or in prison, he comes to believe he has been saved from their fate by various so-called saints.
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006) -- Movieplayer.it - Italian Trailer (Flash)

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Overview

User Rating:
7.1/10   9,702 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?

Down 20% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.

Director:

Dito Montiel

Writers:

Dito Montiel (book)
Dito Montiel (written by)

Contact:

View company contact information for A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints on IMDbPro.

Release Date:

13 October 2006 (USA) more

Genre:

Crime | Drama more

Tagline:

Queens, New York, 1986. Sometimes the only way forward, is back. more

Plot:

The movie is a coming-of-age drama about a boy growing up in Astoria, N.Y., during the 1980s. As his friends end up dead, on drugs or in prison, he comes to believe he has been saved from their fate by various so-called saints. full summary | add synopsis

Awards:

6 wins & 7 nominations more

User Comments:

"My name is Dito and I'm going to leave everyone in this film" more (74 total)


Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Dianne Wiest ... Flori

Robert Downey Jr. ... Dito

Shia LaBeouf ... Young Dito

Melonie Diaz ... Young Laurie
Julia Garro ... Diane
Eleonore Hendricks ... Jenny

Adam Scarimbolo ... Guiseppe
Peter Anthony Tambakis ... Young Nerf (as Peter Tambakis)

Channing Tatum ... Young Antonio
Anthony Tirado ... Street Corner Puerto Rican (credit only)
Erick Rosado ... Puerto Rican Van Driver
Steve Payne ... Beach Chair Guy (as Steven Payne)

Chazz Palminteri ... Monty
Tibor Feldman ... Teacher
Martin Compston ... Mike O'Shea
more
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Additional Details

Also Known As:

Egheiridio anagnorisis agion (Greece) [el]
Guida per riconoscere i tuoi santi (Italy) [it]
Hayatindaki azizleri kesfetmi kilavuzu (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]
Kids - In den Straßen New Yorks (Germany) (DVD title) [de]
Memorias de Queens (Spain) [es]
Queens - kovat korttelit (Finland) [fi]
Tus Santos y Tus Demonios (Mexico) (wide-release title) [es]
Tus santos y tus demonios (Argentina) [es]
more

MPAA:

Rated R for pervasive language, some violence, sexuality, and drug use.

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1 more

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital


Fun Stuff

Trivia:

Dito Montiel was reluctant to cast Shia LaBeouf in the role of young Dito because Montiel was intent on casting an unknown. After the first rejection, however, LaBeouf pushed for one more audition. He came into the casting office, punched a hole in the wall, and convinced Montiel that he could bring a requisite amount of anger to the role. more

Goofs:

Anachronisms: In the 1980s scenes on the subway, scanning the rooftops, you can see many cellphone towers. more

Quotes:

Young Dito: What if I did go? What if I went to Manhattan, or I went somewhere else, like... I don't know.
Monty: Come on Dito, you're not going anywhere, come on.
more

Movie Connections:

References Asteroids (1979) (VG) more

Soundtrack:

Native New Yorker more


FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
37 out of 42 people found the following comment useful.
"My name is Dito and I'm going to leave everyone in this film", 22 November 2006
7/10
Author: Flagrant-Baronessa from the kingdom of far, far away (Sweden)

In this autobiographical coming-of-age piece, director Dito Montiel confronts his gritty past in Astoria, Queens. He tells the doomed story of a teenage boy who spends his days in the seedy hot crime-infested backstreets of 1980's New York City to the day when he leaves for California and does not return until twenty years later, when his father (Chazz Palminteri) is sick. The retelling is impressive and absorbing.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is bursting with the flair of a debut director, who is eager to employ a wide variety of techniques – steadicams, punctured narrative, flashbacks, script interjections, dreamlike non-chronological editing and an uneven pace. The good news is that it channels Spike Lee's criminal Queens street style with fast-paced local jargon that recycles 'fuck' in every sentence and snaps and crackles like kindling in a fireplace between its many thug-like characters. Owing to its coming-of-age format, the story often stays wildly unfocused and you get the feeling many scenes do not serve a purpose other than to get us a feel for the venality with which things were run.

Nevertheless, the characters are all absorbing, especially the young versions of Robert Downey Jr, Eric Roberts and Rosario Dawson. One of these is Antonio – a childhood friend of Dito's and local bully – who does wonderful improvisation-like raw lines. The vast contingent of American preeteen fangirls who were lusting after Channing Tatum after his cheesy teen movies had put me off this actor at first, but it cannot be denied that he gives one of the most intense performances in the film as Antonio – he is hard-edged, testosterone-fuelled and doomed. Robert Downey Jr. is remarkably toned down as the grown-up Dito, delivering sparse lines and abandoning his usual colourful style of acting.

Together the four Queens teens harass girls, beat up rival gangs, shoplift and give attitude to on-lookers and this is undoubtedly when it feels the most like Spike Lee Lite. Saints patiently crafts tension at several points in the story, and it prefers climaxes to continuity as bad events snowball into criminal messes, deaths and the final abandonment by Dito. A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is an interesting and compelling story, recreated with deft strokes by local Dito Montiel.

Sting and Trudi Styler loved the script so much they went to great lengths to support the production, and Chazz Palminteri delayed the shooting of another film of his with money out of his own pocket just to be able to play the bruised father in the film. These should serve as marks of its success and most of all the commitment with which its cast approached the film.

7.5 out of 10

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The Young Cast BRILLIANT! xerxerxex
song? gerard-garilli
Best Performance In This Film fallinep
worth watching? kmarie88
Weak Scottish Accent. ThunderBlade5723
A 1986 movie placed in the 1970's was distracting? esboat1
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