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| Tookey's Review |
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| Pro Reviews |
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| Mixed Reviews |
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| Cast |
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| Released: |
2006 |
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| Genre: |
DRAMA
RITES-OF-PASSAGE
BIOPIC
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| Origin: |
US |
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| Colour: |
C |
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| Length: |
99 |
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Does the world really need yet another picture about growing up on the mean streets of New York? Not on this evidence.
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Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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Robert Downey Jr is wasted on A Guide To Recognising Your Saints, in which he plays its writer-director Dito Montiel, revisiting the haunts of his youth in Queen’s during the 1980s, and confronting his doting mum (Diane Wiest) and resentful father (Chazz Palminteri).
Though some US critics have hailed the younger characters as raw and elemental, they are in fact dreary and stereotypical.
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The plot has virtually no forward momentum, and consists of teenagers gradually meeting horrible ends, or not doing so, and it’s hard to summon up much interest in folk so conventionally observed.The film comes alive only when the older versions of the characters confront each other. Not for the first time, there’s a terrific performance in a minor part by Rosario Dawson.
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Given Dito’s obvious affectionate for his working-class roots, it’s odd that he fails to let us know why he leaves and doesn’t return for 20 years. My guess is that he got fed up with the endless swearing, bickering and shouting. I certainly did.
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, Shia LaBeouf