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A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Grade: C

Winner of a Special Jury Prize for best ensemble at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, this autobiographical film by Dito Montiel features heartfelt performances by Robert Downey Jr., Dianne Wiest, Chazz Palminteri and several teenage talents. But the strong acting can’t overcome the rambling, depressing story about children coming of age violently in Queens in the 1980s. The lengthy flashbacks play like a wimpy rip-off of Larry Clark’s Kids, and the present day sequences are nauseatingly overearnest.