A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

This film won several awards at the Sundance and the Venice Film Festivals and it had mostly positive reviews. So I was really hoping to like this film. Unfortunately, the film didn't work for me.

The film is written and directed by Dito Montiel and it is based on his book on the same name. The story is autobiographical and most of the action takes place in the Astoria section of Queens.
Young Dito (Shia LaBeouf) hangs out with a rough group of youths. One of his good friends is Antonio (Channing Tatum), a boy who always seems to be looking for a fight. Dito is an only child and, to be honest with you, I couldn't really figure out his relationship with his mother Flori (Dianne Wiest) or his father Monty (Chazz Palminteri). That is because these two characters are not very well developed. I knew that Monty was an epileptic and that he loves his son but he seems to live in a world of his own. I found that I knew even less about Flori.

One thing that Dito knows is that he wants to get away from Astoria. When he becomes friends with a new classmate named Mike, who is from Scotland, (played by Martin Compston, who was in Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen) things start to cook. The two boys talk about forming a band and moving to California.

I will not give you the details but I will say that Dito (the older Dito is played by Robert Downey, Jr.) eventually gets to California. He is estranged from his parents for many year but one day he gets a call from one of his old friends telling him that his father is sick. He goes back to Astoria and tries to amends with them as well as some of the friends that he left behind.

The main problem with the film is the direction. Dito should have handed over the directing reigns to someone else. The film alternates between past and present and the transition does not flow. It feels rather choppy. Also, the characters did not feel like they were made out of flesh and blood. Perhaps things were different in the book but just because one can write a good book does not mean they he/she can transform it into a screenplay that will work as a film.

All of the acting is good and cinematographer Eric Gautier did an amazing job of bringing the streets of Astoria to life. And I enjoyed the music that makes up the soundtrack. But in the end I think that there are way too many coming of age films out there now and I would like to see the young filmmakers come up with different ideas for their films. And, more importantly, I would like to see some of the older independent filmmakers be able to get their films financed (and distributed) so that those of us who are no longer under 30 will be able to see films that matter to us.