Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

In 2005, Dito Montiel (Robert Downey Jr) is a successful writer with a book called "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints" about growing up in Astoria, Queens. He's going home after many years in L.A. In 1986, young Dito (Shia Labeouf) is hanging out with his group of friends. There are Diane, Jenny and Laurie who he likes. Brothers Antonio (Channing Tatum) and Giuseppe come from a troubled home. Nerf likes his chemicals too much. Dito befriends new kid Mike O'Shea from Scotland and together they start working for gay druggie dog walker Frank. Antonio doesn't like the growing distance between them. Dito get into an ongoing fight with Reaper and his friends who keeps tagging his neighborhood. He loves his mother (Dianne Wiest) but struggles with his father (Chazz Palminteri). Dito wants to move to California for which his father threatens to disown him.It's a good coming-of-age story. Shia is doing good work that he does from time to time. Channing Tatum shows early signs of his acting abilities. He's very good in this. There are some moments of overacting. I never really bought into the father son conflict. Maybe I simply don't understand it. The movie needs to explain it better. It has to be more than about Dito moving away. There is also a bit too much of the present day story. I like the modern segments but I wish they were shorter and tighter. There are some small problems but there are good acting in a good story.

This relatively short movie (1,5 hours) features several great younger and older actors popular at present: Palminteri, Downey Jr., LaBoeuf, Tatum - to name the most frequently seen in the scenes. As the director Montiel did his debut with this movie, it is a remarkable cast. And they all do great job, there are no dull or mediocre performances.The background is grim, of course, there are several casualties, broken destinies, inter-generation discrepancies... Ugly and violent neighborhoods create empty and violent persons, and it is practically possible to change it single-handed; it is just the option of leaving or adapting - and the same life goes on. The main character made his choice - but had to pay spiritual price for this.The script is largely based on Montiel's youth experiences and this movie is recommended to those whose childhood was not so bright and shiny... Even comparison can be challenging.

This was an outstanding movie and I had never even heard of it Im so ashamed. I was srufing netflix the other day and I saw this. I browsed the credits and noticed all the well known actors so I gave it a shot and I was very impressed.This movie like most independent films does not have much of a story line. It shows young dito and antonio as kids living their lives. It shows them get into all kinds of trouble and shows the struggle of lower class life in New York.This movie was awesome. Every scene was enthralling and the acting was done very well. This movie had many good actors besides channing tatum who I personally think is garbage but give him the right role and he will act like the best of them!If your not a big fan of independent movies or the way they have their own style then I don't recommend this for you. If you are a true film lover then you will love this no doubt. If you like transformers then don't watch this please stick to CGI and exsplosion garbage.

This is one of the more believable and well-executed movie autobiographies I've ever watched, but it fall victim to the same pointless pursuit of naturalness that plagues so many slice-of-life films.Robert Downey Jr. is Dito Montiel, a somewhat well known writer living in California whose moderate fame is built on a book he wrote about his life growing up in Queens. Dito is summoned home by calls from his family and old friends to get his ill father Monty (Chaz Palmintieri) to go to the hospital. As he resists returning home, we flashback to young Dito (Shia LeBeouf), a kid with dreams too big for his working class family, working class neighborhood and working class friends. The plot is ostensibly about a conflict between Dito and a Puerto Rican thug called 'Reaper' and how that leads to Dito finally leaving for his destiny on the West Coast. What the story actually gives us is a series of vignettes about Dito and the people who make up his "not-very-social" social circle.We meet Antonio (Channing Tatum), the bigger, tougher and dimmer boy who's more like a real son to Monty than Dito. Antonio is filled with the self-loathing of the poor and desperate, but clings to it because he thinks it's all that defines him. There's Antonio's brother Guiseppe (Adam Scarimbolo), a boy who's constantly in a haze of booze and drugs. He's the kid who never says anything around adults but talks big around his friends. Nerf (Peter Anthony Tambakis) is another one of Dito's friends, who mainly just tags along with him and Antonio. When we see him 20 years later he's living with his mom and is staring down a life that's only going to get smaller and sadder as time goes by. Laurie (Melonie Diaz) is Dito's almost-but-not-quite girlfriend, the one he would have ended up marrying and probably resenting if he hadn't gotten out of Queens. Michael O'Shea (Martin Compston) is the Scottish foreign exchange student who gives Dito his first real taste of life outside his neighborhood, helping crystallize Dito's sense that he's not like his friends and doesn't want to be. We also come to see Dito's father Monty as a man who is content to think himself a big deal in a small world, but grows angry with anything that makes him realize how small he and his world really are.This is not one of those autobiographical films where you can easily tell how exaggerated and embellished it is. This is one of those films that wants to show you have everything "really" was, life in all its raw and mundane glory. Which means the dialog is relentlessly ordinary, the characters are simple and obvious and the conflict between and within characters isn't greatly examined or explored. It bubbles under the surface and momentarily erupts in shouting matches between people who can't or won't deal with what they're honestly feeling and thinking.You're not supposed to enjoy this movie. You're supposed to be impressed by it. You're supposed to be impressed at how marvelously they were able to capture real life and throw it up on the big screen. But I'm not impressed with these sorts of movies. I don't like them and I don't understand the people who do. I already live real life every hour of every day. I experience first hand all its highs and lows, its darkness and light, its years of denial and awful moments of realization. I don't need to have all that reflected back at me. I don't know why anyone would.Perhaps there are people out there who don't live enough real life. Maybe they've got too much money, too much brain power or too little time to notice or appreciate their own existence. Maybe movies like A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints fills in the gaps those folks feel in their own personal realities. But instead of watching films like this, maybe they should throw away their blackberry, turn off their iPod and go down to help out at their local homeless shelter. That's wouldn't be just watching real life. It would be living it.