A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

Lately it seems that ethnic refers -- mostly -- to being Black, but African American is only one of a long list of what being ethnic means in Post-Modern North America. Living in Queens emphasizes the multi-cultural nature of that fact. Today's New York Post -- no less -- published a critique from Lou Lumenick that points the general public, should it choose to go, in the direction, i.e. to what gritty, valid working class ethnic drama is. With a new Scorsese film being released next week, another new film that pays homage to his early endeavours is more than welcome:

September 29, 2006 -- Dito Montiel's A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, an autobiographical coming-of-age film, won the directing award at Sundance ...

This superbly acted, gritty little movie, which at its best recalls early Scorsese, very vividly portrays a time and place: the mean streets of Astoria, Queens, during the sweltering summer of 1986.

Astoria is a working-class community just 15 minutes from Midtown Manhattan by the elevated subway that serves as the community's spine. But for 16-year-old Dito (Shia LeBeouf of "Holes" in a breakthrough role), it might as well be 15 light- years away.



His father, Monty (Chazz Palminteri), a Nicaraguan immigrant with an explosive temper and a long-suffering Irish-American wife (Dianne Wiest), reminds the gentle Dito at every opportunity that he has greater affection for his son's pal Antonio (charismatic newcomer Channing Tatum), a borderline sociopath from a broken home.

Dito tries to earn the old man's love by hanging with Antonio and a tough crowd. That's when he's not flirting harmlessly with Laurie (Melonie Diaz) and sneaking into Manhattan with a classmate from Scotland (Martin Compston), where they occasionally work for a gay dog sitter (Anthony DeSando).

Violence and other tragedies overtake Dito's circle of friends as he plots his escape. But mostly it's bittersweet memories that are offered up by the contemporary Dito (Robert Downey Jr.), who in the framing story has returned to Astoria after 15 years in California - at his mother's request - to visit the dying Monty.



On paper, this may not sound like the most appealing scenario for a movie, and there are points where Montiel resorts to such first-timer gambits as having characters directly address the camera.

But mostly, you feel like you're eavesdropping on these characters, which Montiel has skillfully fleshed out - with not a little humor - from an impressionistic memoir he published a few years ago.

He and his gifted cinematographer, Eric Gautier (The Motorycle Diaries), make great use of such Astoria landmarks as the community's Depression-era municipal pool.

Montiel gets the best performances in years from Palminteri and Wiest, and there are pointed cameos by Rosario Dawson and Eric Roberts as the adult versions of two characters.
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is deliberately paced, but hang in there - this is a gifted director who actually has something to say and knows how to say it. We'll be hearing from him again.

***



Wonderful first film.

Running time: 98 minutes. Rated R (profanity, violence, sex, drugs). At the Empire, the Lincoln Square and the Angelika.

lou.lumenick@nypost.com