In theaters Sept. 29
(First Look Studios)

The pitch for A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, might well have been: Welcome Back, Kotter meets River's Edge. This sounds like a recipe for a flop, but it actually makes for a well-mixed cultural cocktail. A coming-of-age story set in working class 1980s Astoria, Queens, Saints doesn't have much in common with the book it's based on, a memoir written by Dito Montiel, who also directed and scripted the film. And that's a good thing: Where the book meanders through entertaining but annoyingly half-baked and name-dropping vignettes (a scene with Allen Ginsberg reads like your not-so-smart friend's not-so-interesting brush with fame) the movie focuses poignantly on one teenage summer full of low-grade hoodlum pranks.

Shia LeBeouf, who arrived courtesy of Project Greenlight's The Battle for Shaker Heights and has climbed Hollywood's rungs in films like Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and I, Robot, finally gets a choice role as young Dito, a good kid who might've turned really bad were it not for the neighborhood's "saints" who save him from the unsavory fates of his childhood friends—jail, drug addiction, and death. Robert Downey, Jr., famously familiar with drugs and jail himself, is brimming with angst in his role as grown-up Dito, returning to the old 'hood after making it big as a writer in Los Angeles.

Saints' stark snapshot of a particular time and place is so engaging, we overlooked the fact that the brilliant, blaring '70s rock soundtrack—anchored by Ace Frehley's Kiss-able 1978 hit, "New York Groove"—is at odds with the decade in question. For the small flaw, blame Sting—the film's executive producer must've dozed through that post-production meeting.
—Melissa Walker

LINKS
• Sundance is of "two minds" about the film despite awarding Best Ensemble and Best Director wins at the festival
• The Hollywood Reporter no likey
• Apparently, the film is a Leo