YMMV / A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Giuseppe is an annoying little scumbag, but it's hard not to feel sorry for him when he dies on the train tracks.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • It's easy to interpret Monti as an out and out narcissist. He never listens to Dito whenever his son tries to tell him something and frequently tries to make everything about himself. Notably he's more concerned with yelling at Dito for raising his voice than the fact that one of his friends was just murdered in front of him.
  • Following the above interpretation, the fact that Laurie has no sympathy for Dito in the present suggests that Monti only told his version of the story - choosing to leave out his own abuse.
  • Laurie comes down on Dito especially hard. One has to wonder if she believes that Dito shouldn't have left his family, or she's hiding behind that reason and she's really mad at Dito leaving her.
  • Actually, a few of teenage Laurie's interactions with Dito look a bit like Gaslighting on her part. When Giuseppe throws a knife at Diane, Laurie immediately accuses Dito of finding it funny even though he obviously wasn't laughing, and actually ran out to see if she and Diane were alright. She also says Dito "let" Giuseppe throw the knife, even though Dito was there telling Giuseppe to stop multiple times. And when Dito walks into Giuseppe's funeral, Laurie is more concerned with Dito not calling her back and starts accusing him of not wanting her to go to California with him. Dito is understandably more focused on comforting his best friend at this time, and Laurie starts accusing him and making all sorts of demands, then storming out when she's not given an answer immediately.
  • When it comes to Antonio's implied jealousy at Dito and Mike hanging out, is it possible he just wants to be included? He asks both Dito and Mike if Frank will give him work too, and always seems to be trying to get Dito to hang out with him.
  • A YouTube comment suggested that the reason Frank never paid Mike and Dito the money he owed them was born out of worry that they wouldn't come and see him anymore - since he doesn't appear to have any friends of his own.
  • Diane only appears for ten seconds during Gisueppe's funeral, but her expression leaves things open for interpretation. She looks very sombre, so perhaps she doesn't want to be there but feels she's obligated to be. Or is she genuinely sad and regretting how their last interaction ended? And a wild one but - since Nerf would tell everyone that Giuseppe sat down on the train tracks and wouldn't get up - did she feel some survivor's guilt for his suicide?
• Angst? What Angst?: Flori doesn't seem to have any ill-will at all towards her son for leaving and not contacting her for fifteen years. Of course it's possible she does have some but is choosing to keep it to herself to get Dito to come home. This is partly a result of Spared by the Adaptation - Flori had passed away and was divorced from Monti before Dito returned home - so they of course had no idea how she would have acted in real life.
• Best Known for the Fanservice:
  • The film gets a lot of attention for one scene where Channing Tatum's character walks down the street shirtless. Not his only Shirtless Scene in the movie, but it's the one on the film's poster.
  • The character Jenny probably wouldn't be as remembered if she didn't go topless in a brief scene where she and Antonio try to do it in the stairwell. Eleonore Hendricks has done other work, but that scene is what she's best known for.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Although Shia Le Beouf and Channing Tatum earned a lot of praise, there was a lot of love directed at Anthony DeSando for his memorable small part as Frank the dog walker. Dito Montiel recalls being blown away at how accurately he recreated the real Frank's behaviour and mannerisms.
• Fanon: A common fan theory is that Frank committed suicide after his last scene with Mike and Dito. The fact that he's not mentioned in the present day portions, coupled with his erratic behaviour in his last appearance, leads people to believe he shot himself. The real Frank however was still alive at the time of filming.
• Fetish Retardant: Antonio and Jenny's decidedly un-sexy attempts to do it in the stairwell. Both of them are unpleasantly sweaty from the heat, and Jenny doesn't seem to be that into the idea at first. This is possibly intentional - as it's contrasted with a much more sincere and tender scene between Dito and Laurie afterwards.
• Funny Moments:
  • Antonio and Jenny try to do it in the stairwell - but Jenny burns her leg off the radiator.
  • Dito tries to do a romantic Enter Stage Window at Laurie's...only to get the wrong window. He also rather bluntly tells her "I want to lick your pussy".
  Laurie: You know my mother is right there in the other room?
  • Dito's uncle George not getting that Laurie isn't a swimmer and just works at the pool. The next scene is started off with Dito explaining the situation to Laurie.
  Laurie: Why does your dad call us "the swimmers"?
  Dito: Because you work at a pool.
  Laurie: But I'm not a swimmer!
• Genius Bonus: Dito's "lick your pussy" scene is ostensibly a Shout-Out to the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. But if you take into account the film's New York setting, the gang violence in the story and the boy being white Italian while the girl is Puerto Rican...hello West Side Story - which is of course a Setting Update of Romeo & Juliet.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Rosario Dawson playing the (grown up version at least) Only Sane Man in a violent neighborhood - also getting a scene where she warns criminals away from the area. It's uncomfortable with the transphobic assault allegations she had to face in 2019. The charges were later dropped however.
  • Also uncomfortable is the scene right before Monti's seizure, where Dito tries to order Laurie out of the house, grabbing her by the arm, and later discovering he left a bruise and apologising for it. Shia LeBeouf would be later accused of assault and violent behavior from numerous women.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Shia LaBeouf inspired this reaction from the director. Having to fight against his reputation as a Disney kid, he went ballistic in Dito's office and punched a hole in the wall. He turns in an intense and heart-breaking performance as the teenage Dito.
  • Played with when it comes to Channing Tatum. This was one of his earlier films, before he got typecast in bland meathead roles. Making this a retroactive example, serving as a hint that he did have it all along - and would eventually show it in Foxcatcher.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Giuseppe's death is sad in the film. But he lived in real life and Word of God says he got very excited when he heard he was killed off in the film.
  • The 1980s Astoria is portrayed as a Crapsack World, with the 2000s portions showing it being somewhat reformed. It's hilarious once The New '10s went heavy on the nostalgia for the 1980s - with Rose Tinted Narratives of the period such as Stranger Things.
• Ho Yay: This is a Channing Tatum movie after all. Here there's a bit between Antonio and Dito. Antonio is fiercely protective of Dito, and most of his violent actions stem from someone else antagonising him. He also doesn't like Mike precisely because Dito is spending a lot of time with him. Likewise one scene has Dito choose between telling Laurie he loves her and comforting Antonio. He chooses Antonio.
• Hollywood Homely: Antonio makes fun of Giuseppe for thinking he's handsome, mockingly asking him who told him so. Adam Scarimbolo is given shaggy hair that covers his eyes, and baggy clothes to make him look like a slob (he was also carrying some extra weight he'd had to gain for another film). While he aged very well, a picture of him◊ out of character from the same year shows that he was already very attractive.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Antonio is hit by his father and it seems as if he wants to better himself but doesn't know how. Notably he keeps asking Dito and Mike to let Frank give him a job, and he seems to like Mike but doesn't appear to know how to express it. He at least appears to have reformed in the end. Word of God described the character as:
  "...a guy who breaks your neck and tries to put it together because he didn't mean to do that..."
  • Giuseppe to a lesser extent. He defines himself as "Antonio's brother" and he's also The Friend Nobody Likes. It's clear that he's incredibly lonely but doesn't know what to do. The look on his face before he's hit by the train says it all.
  • Monti may have been a lousy dad but he was genuinely devastated by Dito running away.
• Memetic Mutation: Channing Tatum walking down the street inexplicably shirtless, which he was ribbed for on The Graham Norton Show. It's even on the film's poster too.
• One-Scene Wonder: Diane only really appears in the first act of the movie and then disappears, but she is a very memorable character. Jenny as well to a lesser extent, since she has less to do.
• Questionable Casting:
  • Eric Roberts as the older version of Channing Tatum? Twenty years have passed, yet there are twenty-four years between the two. Presumably Antonio aged badly in prison.
  • In general the casting choices for the adult versions of the teens are usually met with raised eyebrows - if only for them not looking very alike. The exception seems to be Rosario Dawson as the older Laurie ^note and even then she's only a few years older than Melonie Diaz rather than 20 years older and looks it.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • This was made right before Channing Tatum's breakout roles in She's the Man and Step Up.
  • Line of Duty fans might recognise Mike as a young Detective Sergeant Steve Arnott.
  • Melonie Diaz got a bit more mainstream press in The New '10s for starring in the Sundance hit Fruitvale Station and the 2018 reboot of Charmed (2018). Before that, she was also in Be Kind Rewind.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Laurie's two friends Diane and Jenny abruptly disappear in the second act and only show up in the background in a couple more flashbacks. Both were quite entertaining, Diane especially as a Cluster F-Bomb. Neither of them get so much as name-checked in the 2005 portions. Jenny being Out of Focus makes sense considering she didn't exist in the first draft - and was added in to make up for Eleonore Hendricks not getting the part of Laurie.
• Tough Act to Follow: Dito Montiel's directorial debut was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival. His follow-ups were met with So Okay, It's Average responses.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The movie tries to frame Dito as being just as bad as Monti - especially for abruptly leaving and never contacting the others again. Except he was fleeing an abusive home, a horrible neighbourhood and friends who didn't seem to care too much about him. So while never contacting his friends or family again is a little dickish, it's hard to blame him.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Laurie is aggressively asking Dito if he loves her and demands an answer immediately. She does this at Giuseppe's funeral. As in she's more worried about getting her answer straight away than the fact that Dito is trying to comfort his best friend at his brother's funeral. And then there's her attitude in the present day - where she's essentially using emotional blackmail to get him to let his father back into his life because it'll "take care of your mother". She completely invalidates the very real emotional trauma Dito suffered - being beaten up by gangs, having a violent best friend, living in fear that he'll be killed in his sleep, watching another friend get shot right in front of him and having another friend turn on him and threaten him with a gun.
• Values Dissonance: Laurie's attitude that Dito is obligated to take care of his father comes from the fact that Puerto Rican culture places a strong emphasis on family bonds. In Puerto Rico, it's traditional for the children to care for their elderly parents themselves rather than put them into nursing homes. Respect for elders is the utmost priority. Rather than seeing it as Dito being unable to confront his abuser, Laurie views it as him selfishly shirking his responsibilities. She admits that Monti was lousy but seems to think that Flori needing care or peace of mind trumps everything else ("take care of your father and you take care of your mother").