A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is a lively, powerful coming-of-age tale with winning performances and sharp direction from first-timer Dito Montiel.
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Cast
as Older Antonio
as Young Dito
as Dito
as Monty
as Antonio
as Flori
as Laurie
as Mike O'Shea
as Frank
as Young Laurie
as Diane
as Nerf
as Uncle George
as Antonio's Father
as Guiseppe
as Reaper's Little Brother
as Aunt Mary
as Token Clerk
as Prison Guard
as Teacher
as Jenny
as Queensbridge Bodega Man
as Reaper
as Beach Chair Guy
as Joey
as Street Corner Puerto Rican
as Puerto Rican Van Driver
as Drunken Man in Subway
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Critic Reviews for A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
All Critics (94) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (71) | Rotten (23) | DVD (6)
Given all the filmed memory pieces about screaming, violent Italian-American families in New York boroughs, I'm not especially thrilled by even a well-made example.
The plot itself might not break much new ground, but the telling, by both cast and crew, makes this a memoir to remember.
It takes a while to recognize these saints, but the effort is worth it.
The movie never answers the question of why, exactly, the audience should care about these characters.
Though A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is not a great movie, I prefer its street-grit version of adolescent desperation to the arch, mannered tone of Running With Scissors.
Like an O'Neill play, its virtues are not in well-constructed ideas but in the emotional catharses it wrings out of its audience.
Audience Reviews for A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
This depiction of harsh times in the Bronx is portrayed with perfection! I thought the performances from LaBeouf and Tatum were amazing! The plot is extremely engaging and every scene sent chills down my spine. The cinematography, the gritty look, the handheld camera shots, and the low-budget production values, are all contributing factors towards what I consider an overall masterpiece in independent filmmaking. Director Dito Montiel (in my opinion) has made his mark on cinema, creating believable characters to go along with a story that is inspired by true events. This film is a breathtaking work of subtle art filmography. I highly recommend this movie to film lovers. "A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints" is a beautiful little film!
Super Reviewer
Fizzes a bit at the end and didn't really like the adult cast, but the parts of this in flashback in the 70's were interesting. Kind of like "Kids". Enjoyed the music too!
Super Reviewer
You can?t help but think of films such as ?A Bronx Tale? and ?Sleepers? when viewing this film, perhaps more intense and perhaps more gritty in parts, but can?t help being slightly disappointed with the anti-climatic ending after being built up so much. What I did like about this film, was the building on the individual characters, they seemed to have much depth to them, something I wouldn?t have particularly thought of seeing from Shia Laboef and Channing Tatum and was a pleasant surprise. This was most definitely an Actor driven film opposed to storyline, which gave it believabiltity as a true story.
Super Reviewer
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints Quotes
| Young Antonio: | I'm a fucking piece of shit. And that's who I am. |
| Dito Montiel: | In the end - just like I said - I left everything, and everyone. But no one, no one has ever left me. |