* Amazon are not included in Price Watch

A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints DVD

| DVD

Robert Downey Jr stars in this coming-of-age drama about a boy growing up in Astoria, N.Y., during the 1980s.

Read More

buy new from £5.99 | RRP: £15.99
* Excludes Voucher Code Discount
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. If you click through any of the links below and make a purchase we may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you). Click here to learn more.
Searching retailers...
  • DVD Details
  • Reviews (0)
  • Descriptions
    abc...
  • Price History
  • Watch Trailer
Released
13 April 2009
Directors
Actors
Format
DVD 
Publisher
Momentum Pictures 
Classification
Runtime
98 minutes 
Features
PAL 
Barcode
5060018490540 
  • Title not yet reviewed...

  • Please review this title

    We will publish your review of A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints [2006] on DVD within a few days as long as it meets our guidelines.
    None of your personal details will be passed on to any other third party.

    Thank you - we will review and publish your review shortly.

Coming-of -age drama set in 1980s New York. Returning home to see his sick father (Chazz Palmintieri), Dito (Robert Downey Jr.), reminisces about his youth in the NY borough of Queens. As the action centres on events in his childhood, we follow a younger Dito on the verge of making a tough choice between staying in the gang-ridden streets and the bosom of his family, or breaking free into a wider world, full of possibilities.

Writer Dito Montiel’s highly cinematic memoir of his childhood in Queens, New York, makes the leap to the big screen, with the author himself getting behind the camera to helm this powerful, and at times gut-wrenching, adaptation. The film flits back and forth between the adult Montiel’s (Robert Downey Jr.) emotional return to the neighbourhood after a 15-year gap, and the childhood antics that led to his younger self (played by Shia LeBouf) fleeing to Los Angeles in 1986. Downey’s older brother Montiel is an introspective, quietly successful author who comes home after he is informed of his father’s (Chazz Palminteri) life-threatening illness. LeBouf’s teenage Montiel is a young tearaway who runs into constant trouble with his gang of friends, falls in love with local looker Laurie (Rosario Dawson), and dreams of an escape from the city with his Scottish friend, Mike (Martin Compston). The balance of the film tilts in favour of the kids, with most of the action taking place in 1986. These scenes acutely capture the punishing heat of the New York City summer, with the teenage gang soaked in sweat and dirt as they trample through their crumbling Queens ghetto. Channing Tatum gives a terrifying performance as Montiel’s violent young friend, Antonio, and Palminteri is equally intimidating, filling the screen with palpable rage as he barks at the older and younger versions of his son. The skittish narrative makes frequent lurches through the decades, and also sees characters frequently breaking the fourth wall by directly addressing the audience, recalling the work of writer-director team Guillermo Arriaga and Alejandro González Iñárritu (21 GRAMS, AMORES PERROS). Montiel couples this with the gritty stylistic verve of classic New York movies such as MEAN STREETS and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, ultimately transforming SAINTS into the perfect distillation of two separate eras in an ever-evolving city.

Related Titles

More DVDs Directed by Dito Montiel