“The Identical” is a small, Christian-based drama with the most contradictory title of any film this year. In so many ways this movie is unlike any ever made. The set-up is o.k. – a young, married couple living in the South back in the 1930s, decides to give one of their newborn twin boys to a pastor and his wife (who cannot conceive), because they can’t afford to take care of both of them. These early scenes of “The Identical”, shown in black-and-white, are the most authentic in the film.
Then things shift, rather quickly, to technicolor, and everything changes. The boys, each unaware that he has an identical twin brother, both become singers. Pastor Reece Wade (Ray Liotta, who also served as an executive producer) and wife Louise (Ashley Judd) watch their son Ryan (Blake Rayne) grow-up with dreams of becoming a performer, not a preacher like his dad. His best friend Dino (Seth Green) encourages Ryan to pursue this career, but there are hurdles and struggles along the way.
At the same time, (now in the mid-50s), a new superstar emerges on the national music scene, and it’s the other twin, Drexyl Hemsley (also played by Rayne). He becomes an instant sensation with “Blue-Suede Shoes”-esque bee-bop hits for all the soda pop kids in candy colored outfits to boogie woogie to. But what takes “The Identical” way off-key and keeps it there from this point forward is that both singers look, sound, and act like the King of Rock N’ Roll, Elvis Presley. It now becomes very difficult to take the characters and the story seriously. And the Elvis references don’t stop there: Ryan joins the Army, we see Drexyl appear on an Ed Sullivan-type TV show. And the fact that no one, including neither of them, suspects that they might be related when they look and sound EXACTLY alike is simply ridiculous.
At one point, when Ryan begins working as a “Drexyl Impersonator”, I actually started to buy back into “The Identical” (we don’t get much of Drexyl’s side of the story). But then the reality of living here on Planet Earth, instead of the weird, bizarre universe where this story takes place, returned, leaving me to once again ask: “How come nobody can see that these two are identical twins – and they’re both Elvis knock-offs?”
With about 20 minutes left in the film, a minor character finally references the Elephant in the Room, stating, “There’s only one Elvis”. Now what are we supposed to think? Apparently Elvis somehow existed on “Planet Identical” this entire time, along with not one, but two professional copycats who are also both superstars? Talk about being “all shook up”. The closing credits confirm that this is an “entirely fictional story”, but that fact will do nothing to ease “suspicious minds”.
Had “The Identical” been about two generic soul, pop or country singers it might have worked. The Christian themes are welcome and prominent, and Liotta does fine work. But even with the numerous upbeat songs, the pacing is way too slow and there are way too many unforgivable errors. Somebody, back at the start of this project, should have marked this script: “Return to Sender.”
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “The Identical” gets a C-.