A Guide to Recognising Your Saints (15)

Martin Compston trades the mean streets of Glasgow for 1980s New York in this memorable coming-of-age drama. Based on the director's own experiences, A Guide treads a familiar path through gangs, poverty and poverty of expectations, but its young actors, aided by some old hands and Robert Downey Jr, put enough raw energy into their performances to lift the film above the ordinary.

Compston is Michael O'Shea, who has moved to Queens from Scotland. He finds a friend in young Dito (Shia LaBeouf), an only child born to older parents (Chazz Palminteri and Dianne Wiest). Dito, a sensitive sort, wants desperately to move away to the west coast but his father won't contemplate it. He fails to see why his son can't be more like the street smart Antonio (Channing Tatum). Antonio, in turn, wishes he could trade his own brute of a father for the old school Palminteri.

What Palminteri's character doesn't realise is that the neighbourhood doesn't abide by the same codes as in the old days. Guns have taken the place of fists, and acts occur that will tear Dito from Queens and his family. Returning reluctantly from LA years later to see his sick father, it is clear the older Dito (Robert Downey Jr) still hasn't found a way to deal with the past.

Though overlong and veering towards being an actors' workshop towards the end, with each character allowed to have his "big scene" (Downey has several), A Guide is an engrossing ensemble picture graced with some fine performances. Tatum is exceptional as the kid destined to be forever scarred by his upbringing. Last seen in the dance flick Step Up, he's proving to be an actor of real substance.

Palminteri and Wiest are pitch perfect as Dito's crushed parents. As for Compston, he isn't stretched linguistically – the part requires him to keep his accent – and it's a relatively minor role, but when he is on screen he's confident enough to make his presence felt. Having shown he can play with the big boys it will be fascinating to see what he does next.

This film is a mess on so many levels. The direction is clumsy, the narrative is unclear, the plot doesn't hang together, there isn't enough money to do what the director wants.

However, writer-director Dito Montiel's debut has such a fierce energy and a remarkable cast that the combination overcomes all of those faults.

In the end, A Guide to Recognising Your Saints is so much more than the sum of its parts. Montiel is lucky in that he has caught lightning in a bottle and created a little bit of indie movie magic. He's been making his way through the underbelly of US culture on the fringes of the rock scene for around 20 years now. The film, adapted from his book of the same name, tells the story of his teenage years in Astoria, New York.

As his friends fall victim to drugs or violence, Dito manages to survive, something he later attributed to saints, who he didn't recognise at the time.

In many ways you have seen a lot of this before, but seldom as well done. Robert Downey Jr plays the adult author revisiting his teenage haunts and flashing back to his earlier days. With Downey effectively a narrator, the story takes its own particular journey illuminated along the way by great performances from an ensemble cast.

Among the stand-outs is newcomer Channing Tatum in a heartbreaking role and Martin Compston, who is very impressive in his first American part as Dito's Scots/Irish pal.

Experienced actors such as Chazz Palminteri, Dianne Wiest and Rosario Dawson – in a cast this young, she's a veteran – lend equally impressive support in a film that succeeds against all the odds.