A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is a 2006 film starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Shia LaBeouf. It is based on a 2001 memoir of the same name by Dito Montiel, in which he described growing up in Astoria, New York during the 1980s.
Montiel also wrote and directed the film adaptation, which was released in the United States in 2006, in the UK and Europe on March 2, 2007 and in Italy on March 9, 2007. The DVD version of the film was released on February 20, 2007 in the United States.
The film is partly set in the present, but mainly in flashbacks in the 1980s. The latter parts are filmed with shaky camera with short shots.
Dito, a writer in L.A., goes home to Astoria, Queens, after a 15-year absence when his mother calls to say his father's ill. In a series of flashbacks we see the young Dito, his parents, his four closest friends, and his girl Laurie, as each tries to navigate family, race, loyalty, sex, coming of age, violence, and wanting out. A ball falls onto the subway tracks at a station, small things get out of hand. Can Dito go home again? Written by
