A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Review
by Clint Morris
The
Downey Jr autobiography perhaps? Something encompassing sordid tales of
one snorting coke off hooker’s chests, forcing Molly Ringwald into
downing flaming sambucas with him on the set of The Pick-Up Artist,
and climbing into strangers beds for forty winks when nobody’s
home? - No, but damn good title for a movie that’s got Robert
Downey Jnr Post-Boozehound in it, don’t ya think? The angels have
definitely been smiling down on Downey Jr over the last couple of
years. Just when it looked like he’d burnt his last bridge with that
infamous Ally McBeal firing a couple of years back, he bounced back – Sober as a nun – to great acclaim in such gems as Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, The Singing Detective and Good Night and Good Luck. (He’s even managing to take some nice cash-over-credibility gigs like the one in The Shaggy Dog remake). Having truly now recognized his Saints,
he seems hell-bent on staying where he is (that’d be the top, as
one of today’s most popular actors) if only because Johnny Depp’s a
step below on the ladder ready to snap up that circlet whenever he
falls again. Which, we hope, he won’t. Because he’s just so damn good. Though Saints
isn’t so much a vehicle for the star, as it is the writer/director
(Dito Montiel), Downey Jr is again grand in it. And what’s fabulous
about this one is that it’s such a small role – both in scale and
stateliness – that it again leaves us with the incapacity to peg the
guy. Like a new father feeding a hungry bub, he’s constantly surprising. Based
on the memoirs of real-lifer Dito Montiel, the film, re-told in
flashback, chronicles the rearing of a young man in Astoria N.Y and
most significantly, the summer of 1986 when Dito and his three buddies
cruised the mean streets, nearly under the Hellsgate Bridge, looking
for tail and trouble. Like the others, Dito (Shia LeBeouf) dreams of
living New York one day, but his small-minded father (Chazz Palminteri)
has him believing that there is no world outside of city limits. Meantime, the older Dito (Downey Jr) plots his homecoming – 15 years after he left New York – to see his ailing father. Saints is a film you’ve seen before – even recently, with David Duchovny’s homecoming tale House of D,
playing on the same band – but like any good coming-of-age tale, it
knows exactly how to keep a viewer firmly fixated on the screen and not
so much on the illuminated exit sign: interesting characters, good ol’
music tunes, plenty of emotion, and lots of tender moments. The
performances are grand, especially from Wiest and Palminteri, who are
absolutely marvellous and insolently credible in their roles. Newcomer
Channing Tatum (last seen smooching Amanda Bynes, whilst a ‘Veronicas’
track is overlayed over the action, in teen-com She’s the Man)
is brilliant in his career-making role of the misunderstood rough nut,
Antonio. And Rosario Dawson, though barely in the film, again shows her
versatility by following up her sweet but cheeky role in the rowdy
comedy Clerks II
with a tender, very pragmatic, turn here as Dito’s love interest.
Downey Jr, though slightly wasted in such a small role, is also good. The
only off element of the casting is Shia LeBeouf. Though he’s quite
good, and never skips a beat, he just doesn’t seem right for the lead
role. Either the young actor has played roles too similar in the past
(it does share similarities with his characters in Holes and The Battle of Shaker Heights,
I suppose) or he’s just not believable as a messed up – and you
don’t imagine him growing up to look like Downey Jr for that matter –
80s street kid. One thing’s for sure, he looks as out of place as an
AFL football jersey at a Penrith game. Don’t get me wrong, he’s very
good, but a fresh face might have pulled you into his world a little
easier. There are a further couple of flaws to the film: one,
the fact that we have seen this tale time and time again, and two, the
fact that the intercutting of the scenes set in the ‘past’ don’t mesh
too well with the scenes of ‘the present’ – in fact, whenever we return
to the present, we’re almost taken away from the picture. A narration
might have worked better, because it’s the action of the ‘old days’
that is the pics heartbeat. It might also have helped if we had ‘felt’
for the lead character a little more – hard to say whether that’s the
fault of LeBeouf of Montiel - and really rooted for him. A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
is a little ‘been there, done that’ but offers such commendable
performances, heart-rending moments and so beautifully captures the
ever-so-present broken tie that can exist between a father and son,
that it shouldn’t be dismissed. 3.5 out
of 5 A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Australian release: 16th November, 2006
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Shia LaBeouf, Chazz Palminteri, Dianne Wiest, Rosario Dawson
Director: Dito Montiel
Website: Click
here.
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