Critic Reviews

Downey Jr. and LaBeouf as Dito as well as Chazz Palminteri as Monty are outstanding. Channing Tatum (who I've never heard of) is also amazing as the tortured soul Antonio.

The movie is awash in great performances by actors known and otherwise.

This gallantly imperfect indie pops with attitude.

It's forceful and alive and spilling over with crazy poetry.

hough the picture is wrenching, at times devastating, it leaves you with that buoyant feeling of having encountered a raw, authentic work of art.

In "A Guide," passion and imagination go a long way in transforming seemingly conventional material and characters.

This is an exceptionally assured debut, and Montiel exhibits rare care with editing and sound design. His real forte, though, is casting, to which a brief scene featuring Downey and the incandescent Rosario Dawson powerfully attests.

Most viewers will discover this picture - and it is worth discovering - when it is released on DVD.

This is a gifted director who actually has something to say and knows how to say it. We'll be hearing from him again.

Scenemaker Dito Montiel's rough, grating memoir of growing up in a poor, violent section of Astoria, Queens, in the mid-1980s features a few too many arty flourishes, but also packs a raw power that's hard to shake.