Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Michael O'Keefe Not that THE IDENTICAL is not interesting, it is bogged down borrowing freely from the legendary life of Elvis Presley. In the mid 1930s, William and Helen Hemsley(Brian Geraghty and Amanda Crew)are blessed, or cursed, with the birth of identical twin boys. The Hemsley's suffer the depression in the deep south and decide to give up one of their boys to a childless couple, the Reverend Reece Wade(Ray Liotta)and his wife Louise(Ashley Judd).Drexel Hemsley(Blake Rayne), from his humble beginnings rises in the world like a flaming comet and gains fame as the adored rock 'n' roll star Drexel "The Dream" Hensley. The other boy, Ryan Wade(also played by Rayne)struggles buried under the thumb of his adopted father, wanting him to enter the ministry. Ryan, like Drexel, has the God-given talent to sing. He would finally actually become an imitator of Drexel, called "The Identical". I would watch it again.The film becomes so predictable and contrived, but yet compelling enough to stick around and enjoy the music. Some of the better tunes: "City Lights", "Gypsy Man" and "Your Love's Keepin' Me Tonight" by Rayne. Other songs are provided by The Morph Kings, Darcey & Mo and The Ricky Reese Band.Veteran actor Liotta seems to over-act his role, while Miss Judd is sympathetic, but a little stale. Of course, Rayne, a former Elvis Presley impersonator, does the best with what he's got. Also in the cast: Seth Green, Joe Pantoliano, Erin Cottrell, Gary Beaty and Danny Woodburn.There is only one Elvis and his fans will either be highly agitated or mildly pleased with THE IDENTICAL.

dansview By now you know the story. The real Elvis had a twin brother who died at childbirth. This movie creates a hypothetical scenario wherein the twin lives but is adopted at birth.One boy goes on to become essentially Elvis (a fictional version of him) and the other goes on to become a preacher's son with a penchant for black music, and for the music of his long lost brother whom he doesn't even realize he is related to.The actors who played the couple who gave up one boy for adoption did a fine job of acting. I felt their pain. Ray Liotta was good too. A "personality" always plays themselves. An "actor" plays diverse roles. Liotta proved he could do that by veering way far from his "wise guy" persona.Ashley Judd was added presumably for star power, because her role either didn't require much, or she chose not to do much with it.As professional critics have noted, the lead actor (an Elvis impersonator in real life)lacked "heat." Ironically his character has wondered all his life why the other guy got all the fame and not him. Clearly the reason was because the other guy had confidence and generated sexual smoke.Our main character is way too nice and respectable to be a boogie-woogie icon. More significantly the actor did not convey a sense of desperation in being trapped on the wrong path, nor frustration in missing his train so to speak. This guy is not a professional actor, so I forgive him.The film needed a passionate lead. Liotta carried the torch, but our real lead dropped the ball. There was a scene where he turns down substantial money, but shows no signs of internal conflict about it. Even when his dad falls ill, we don't really see the agony we expect to see.I don't know what the heck was going on with the pro-Israel thing or the Jewish message. OK, the real Elvis was partially Jewish genealogically, but how close to you have to follow his life in this script, given that it was not officially about him? Throwing in stuff about war in Israel and the preacher's support was simply gratuitous and awkward.I'm o.k. with our lead not doing drugs or chasing women. Apparently the production company is Christian. That's fine, but I still needed to see more of a spiritual struggle between devotion to God and the darker forces represented by dance music, and a soulful battle by a dutiful son to please his father and himself simultaneously. This was not done successfully. But nice try. I enjoyed it anyways.The most unique aspect of this film was it's original music score. They used new, original Elvis-sounding songs rather than the same old tired cliché Elvis tunes. Regardless of whether this was for copyright reasons, I enjoyed the music and appreciated its' freshness.

plh-83777 I'd like to meet the snobby butt reviewers who dissed this flick. My wife and I were teary eyed a few different times during this movie. It was very entertaining from start to finish with very few slow parts. Now I'm in my 50's so my Pop lived through the Depression so maybe it hit home more for me. Leave a light on and Pop would swat my butt! Lil! And I grew up just fine. This film exceeded my expectations, the music was great, who gives a heck if some of the scenes were on a sound stage?The family angle and the other portrayals were pretty good. We both felt it was 90 minutes well spend on a good movie !! Screw the critics !!! ha heehaw

Ricardo Martinez I am a Christian that is very wary of faith based films because they are usually cheesy and badly done. The Identical is not your typical faith based film. While there is a preacher character and faith is discussed some, there is no preachy message and no altar calls in the movie. This is just a wholesome movie that was surprisingly good and is safe for the whole family. All my kids and my wife enjoyed the movie. My wife did say that the whole Elvis thing going on was a little weird, but at the same time it made the film interesting.I am disappointed that this film made so little money. It deserves to have been viewed more and to have made more money. I'm not sure if there was a lot of marketing for this film. Hopefully, it will have a greater life on Netflix and on DVD.