Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Robert Downey Jr.
Rosario Dawson
Shia LaBeouf
Channing Tatum
Eric Roberts
Dianne West
Chazz Palminteri
Directed By:
Dito Montiel
This deserves an explanation. What is this movie? Why is the cast so stellar and I have never heard of it? Valid questions. A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS is the work of self-made man Dito Montiel. By that, I mean he literally used this story (the book first and then the movie) to make a name for himself in Hollywood after thee failure of his punk rock efforts with GUTTERBOY (judge it yourself, I don't like it). The result is something very awkward to look at because first, a unique individual has complete creative control over the product from the book format from the book to the film and also, Dito Montiel doesn't seem to know who he is, but he insists on showing his bare self on screen. I didn't know how I felt about watching A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS and I still don't. What was Dito Montiel tying to do here? Pay his respects to his past? Tell us that home is home, wherever you and however you like it? Talk about his father?
I have never read A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS the memoir, but the movie picks up a few months after its release, when it already started to tap into some success. Dito (Downey) is singing the blues of the recently published and starts receiving phone calls from his mother and his friend Antonio about his father being really ill. Both things (the publication and the illness) are enough to make him jump in a plane from LAX to JFK airport, back into the Queens of his youth. He is swarmed then by memories of his past and what I think also is what A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS (the memoir) is about. The life of a teenage Dito (LaBeouf), looking for a future in New York, torn in between his dreams of being a musician and the rugged life he's living on the mean streets.
How Dito Montiel ended up with such a great cast of actors (who carried the text admirably well), can only be explained by actual casting talent and directorial instincts. Robert Downey Jr. was still two years from making IRON MAN, Shia LaBeouf still hadn't done TRANSFORMERS (and he gives maybe his best performance as young Dito), Channing Tatum...well...Dito Montiel was probably his biggest fan because he directed FIGHTING, which starred him in 2009. He recuperated a forgotten glory like Chazz Plaminteri also, which is very smart of him, because the Italian actor can deliver and does, as Dito's father Monty. The cast is amazingly well chosen and directed to honor the text they worked with, the ingredients are there, but somehow, the whole film doesn't really make them jam together. Eggs, flour and heat make a great cake, but they don't taste as good on their own.
I feel bad saying this, because it's obviously a very personal story and Dito Montiel put himself in a vulnerable position there, exposing how he was judgmental of his life when he was young. Young people are judgmental as a default mode of being. Yeah, his life was hard and it's difficult to shape your identity when life has you by the throat like this, but not that uncommon. What A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS was about is a man going back to his roots, realizing he has been blinded by his thirst for success. Apparently, there is a whole storyline about Dito's escape to Los Angeles being due to a divine intervention, which is not a part of the movie. There are moments where you think Dito is lucky as hell to have survived (like when a kid from a rival gang shoots his friend, but unexplainably NOT HIM), but it's just hinted. There's no trace of religion in this movie. Too bad, it could've been the final ingredient that gelled things together and made this film special.
Oh yeah and minus points for the talented Rosario Dawson who gets the shit end of the stick again with an almost invisible support role.
SCORE: 68%
How Dito Montiel ended up with such a great cast of actors (who carried the text admirably well), can only be explained by actual casting talent and directorial instincts. Robert Downey Jr. was still two years from making IRON MAN, Shia LaBeouf still hadn't done TRANSFORMERS (and he gives maybe his best performance as young Dito), Channing Tatum...well...Dito Montiel was probably his biggest fan because he directed FIGHTING, which starred him in 2009. He recuperated a forgotten glory like Chazz Plaminteri also, which is very smart of him, because the Italian actor can deliver and does, as Dito's father Monty. The cast is amazingly well chosen and directed to honor the text they worked with, the ingredients are there, but somehow, the whole film doesn't really make them jam together. Eggs, flour and heat make a great cake, but they don't taste as good on their own.
I feel bad saying this, because it's obviously a very personal story and Dito Montiel put himself in a vulnerable position there, exposing how he was judgmental of his life when he was young. Young people are judgmental as a default mode of being. Yeah, his life was hard and it's difficult to shape your identity when life has you by the throat like this, but not that uncommon. What A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS was about is a man going back to his roots, realizing he has been blinded by his thirst for success. Apparently, there is a whole storyline about Dito's escape to Los Angeles being due to a divine intervention, which is not a part of the movie. There are moments where you think Dito is lucky as hell to have survived (like when a kid from a rival gang shoots his friend, but unexplainably NOT HIM), but it's just hinted. There's no trace of religion in this movie. Too bad, it could've been the final ingredient that gelled things together and made this film special.
Oh yeah and minus points for the talented Rosario Dawson who gets the shit end of the stick again with an almost invisible support role.
SCORE: 68%