The
Identical
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.
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