MOVIE · 2006

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

CrimeDrama104 min

Robert Downey Jr. is Dito Montiel, a successful writer called back to Astoria, Queens, by his worn-down mother (Dianne Wiest) to see his ailing father. The visit pulls him into memories of 1980s Queens, where the younger Dito, embodied by Shia LaBeouf, grows up amid street fights, tight friendships, and the threat hanging over Antonio, Giuseppe, Nerf, and Mike. Moving between the adult homecoming and the boyhood that shaped it, the film follows how one violent neighborhood leaves its mark on the kids trying to survive it and the man looking back.