A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006)

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"I want to remember

who these people were.

And what they meant.

And that they were real."

Dito Montiel lived this life -- growing up on the mean streets of Queens, a teenager in the mid-1980s. He saw his friends brutalized and brutalizing. He saw friends die. He saw friends imprisoned. He experienced the vengence of gangs. He survived. And he escaped. And he wrote a little memoir. With the assistance and urging of the Sundance Insitute, Robert Downey, Jr., Sting, and others, he also went on to put this story on film -- his first directorial experience.

The cast is absolutely outstanding:
Shia LaBeouf as the teenage Montiel, Robert Downey, Jr. as Montiel, the adult.
Chazz Palminteri as his father Monty and Dianne Wiest as his mother Flori.
His friends, Channing Tatum as teenage Antonio, Eric Roberts as the adult Antonio; Adam Scarimbolo as Antonio's brother Guiseppi; Martin Compston as Mike; Peter Tambakis as the teenage Nerf, Scott Campbell as the adult Nerf; Melonie Diaz as Montiel's teenage girlfriend Laurie, Rosario Dawson as the adult Laurie.

The powerful soundtrack contains meaningful work by John Sebastion, Cat Stevens, Elton John and Kiki Dee, Lou Reed, KISS, and others.

Rated R for pervasive language, some violence, sexuality, and drug use.

My personal rating: B