Dito Montiel, a successful author, receives a call from his long-suffering mother, asking him to return home and visit his ailing father. Dito recalls his childhood growing up in a violent neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., with friends Antonio, Giuseppe, Nerf and Mike.
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.
– Michael Booth,
Denver Post,
27 Oct 2006
rotten:
The movie never answers the question of why, exactly, the audience should care about these characters.
– Liam Lacey,
Globe and Mail,
17 Nov 2006
fresh:
It takes a while to recognize these saints, but the effort is worth it.
– Peter Howell,
Toronto Star,
17 Nov 2006
fresh:
The plot itself might not break much new ground, but the telling, by both cast and crew, makes this a memoir to remember.
– Ben Walters,
Time Out,
28 Feb 2007
rotten:
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.