The Identical
1.5 Waffles!

When you hear the title, The Identical, you start to think this might be some bizarre, frightening horror movie, or some complex, spine-tingling thriller. Yet, there is nothing thrilling about The Identical, so just get that out of your head right now. If you lower your expectations, maybe it isn’t all that bad. It’s not that good either.

In this story kind of based on the life of Elvis Presley, but with all of the names changed and similar sounding music put in place because we don’t want to get the pants sued off of us by the estate (that Priscilla Presley is one litigious lady), Blake Rayne stars as Ryan Wade – a man who loves music and looks exactly like the most iconic rock star of his generation, Drexel “We Can’t Call Him Elvis For Legal Reasons” Hemsley (also portrayed by Rayne).

Back in 1935, Ryan and Drexel were identical twins born to a poor couple who didn’t have the money to raise them both during The Depression. The father (Brian Geraghty) reaches out to a preacher, Reece Wade (Ray Liotta), and his wife, Louise Wade (Ashley Judd), when he discovers the two have been trying to have children, but can’t, and gives the loving couple one of the babies. In return, The Wades promise to never tell the young boy the truth until the birth parents have passed away (try keeping that secret under your hat for 40 years).

While Ryan has a burning love for music, oddly Elvis/Drexel-like looks, and battles with his preacher father, who wants the young man to follow in his footsteps and become a man of the cloth as well, Drexel becomes the biggest rock star of a generation.

Will either one discover the truth?

Give The Identical the Oscar for most bland movie of the year.

The only message that came through loud and clear at every turn was how it is better to be Elvis than spend life as some working stiff!

While the film is being sold as a faith-based film with all sorts of marketing and promotional effort being put forth to get church groups to buy tickets en masse, The Identical isn’t really a faith-based movie.

Just because the characters sometimes mention God, quote a bible verse or go to church once in a while doesn’t mean it’s all about faith or faith has anything to do with the plot. Did I make a horror movie because one dude jumps out from behind a door wearing a mask? Branding The Identical as a faith-based movie is a cynical attempt to sell tickets to a film that isn’t very gripping, and doesn’t have another audience that would be interested in seeing it.

Yet, The Identical also doesn’t have much horribly negative about it either. Elvis fans might get a kick out of catching the parallels between The King’s life and the lives we see on screen, including time in the army, the twin (Elvis did have a twin brother who was stillborn), working as a delivery man, discovering Rock and Roll and more, but the movie would be better served as a flight of fancy fan fiction novel you would read on the web instead of producing it into a full-fledged movie.

Director Dustin Marcellino and Rayne never find the compelling hook to make us care about Ryan Wade. He’s a decent dude and all, but he faces very basic, simplistic problems examined by many movies, books and plays before this one, which leaves the audience emotionally adrift moving from scene to scene without much of a plot driving The Identical until it is too late.

While Rayne is a great Elvis impersonator, it’s hard to find something dynamic about him. He never gets beyond the impersonator label with his performance, and the movie never evolves beyond being more than an impersonation either. Liotta is the actor who puts in a strong performance as we see Wade full of fire and brimstone as a young man, and dealing with the twilight years and his relationship to his son later on. I hope Rayne was taking some notes while on set.

The songs are reasonable knock-offs of famous 50’s and 60’s Elvis-like tunes, but I can download those and listen to them instead of spending the time and money to see The Identical.

The Identical is rated PG for Thematic Material and Smoking.