DVD of the week – A Guide to Recognising Your Saints

This is a raw and gritty autobiographical movie with some first rate acting, but if you want a feel good film, forget about it.

With the line-up of DVD releases looking a little thin on the ground over the next seven days (well, there is Jump In – a Disney skipping movie, Them – a formulaic horror about a couple trapped in a house, and an extended version of Ghost Rider – where Nicholas Cage plays ‘a skull-faced angel of vengeance’) we thanked our lucky stars that A Guide to Recognising Your Saints was among our cinematic choices this week.

Set in a tough Queens neighbourhood in the 80s, A Guide to Recognising Your Saints is a coming of age drama about a young boy, Dito, growing-up and the so-called saints that save him from turning out like his dead, drug-addicted and imprisoned contemporaries.

Admittedly on paper this might sound like it’s in danger of being sickeningly sentimental, but on screen the raw, independently-produced movie is actually rather gripping and, thanks to some excellent acting, it is also very watchable.

Written and directed by a first-timer, the real life Dito Montiel, the on-screen Dito is played by Shia LaBeouf as the troubled teen and Robert Downey Jr. as the adult version, who returns home for the first time in 20 years when he hears his father (played by Chaz Palmintieri) is sick.

Told as a memoir, the frequent skipping back and forth between adolescence and adulthood makes for a messy, and somewhat confusing movie at some points, but on the whole the first rate acting (particularly from the line-up of talented teens) makes up for the over-indulgent editing choices.

With an emphasis on the crime-riddled backstreets and the shockingly seedy pastimes of his youth, Montiel’s movie – like the cult title Kids – is likely to appeal to rebellious and angst-ridden adolescents, however suburban and middle class they might be. For adult viewers, however, the more subtle themes of relationships, guilt and regret are more likely to stick in the mind – but don’t expect to be smiling when this DVD comes to an end.

Film: A Guide to Recognising Your Saints
Directed by: Dito Montiel
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Shia LaBeouf, Chaz Palmintieri
Classification: 15
Release date: 2 July 2007
Available from: Amazon for £10.98

Michelle Byrne
4 July 2007