{"id":5460,"date":"2014-09-04T13:50:21","date_gmt":"2014-09-04T17:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?p=5460"},"modified":"2014-09-04T13:51:03","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T17:51:03","slug":"the-identical-unlike-any-faith-themed-film-youve-seen-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2014\/09\/the-identical-unlike-any-faith-themed-film-youve-seen-before.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;The Identical&#8221; unlike any faith-themed film you&#8217;ve seen before"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture.<\/p>\n<iframe title=\"The Identical - Father and Son, Faith Trailer\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MxWVXHatVDA?start=14&feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p><strong>A Star is Born. <\/strong>That would be Blake Rayne who headlines <strong><em>The Identical<\/em> (opening nationwide tomorrow, 9\/5) <\/strong>in the twin roles of fictional\u00a0 &#8217;50&#8217;s-60&#8217;s rock superstar Drexel Hemsley (read Elvis Presley) and Ryan Wade, the son of a preacher (Ray Liotta) who gets his big break as a Drexel impersonator. The twist that &#8212; unbeknownst to both of them &#8212; Drexel and Ryan are actually identical twins who were separated at birth when their depression-era natural parents (Brian Geraghty and\u00a0Amanda Crew) realized they couldn&#8217;t afford to raise both children.\u00a0 Out of love for both sons, the couple decided to ask the itinerant Rev. Reece Wade and his wife Louise (Ashley Judd) &#8212; who ached for a child of their own &#8212; to adopt one of them. The two boys were then raised as only children &#8212; neither knowing of the other&#8217;s existence.<\/p>\n<p>The story is actually a creative re-imagining of the life of Elvis Presley &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Elvis_Presley\">whose real-life twin brother was actually stillborn<\/a> &#8212; making the casting of Rayne, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.entertainmentwise.com\/news\/156842\/EXCLUSIVE-Blake-Rayne-Denies-The-Identical-Is-Based-On-The-Life-Of-Elvis-Presley\">a real-life Elvis impersonator<\/a> in his very first acting role, all the more inspired. The thing is though, Rayne actually can act and has a magnetic screen presence all his own. Like Ryan Wade, he&#8217;s more than just an imitation of a talent. He IS a talent who manages to hold his own, even opposite Ray Liotta with him he shares some very intense and emotional scenes.<\/p>\n<p>And, speaking of Liotta, his performance is really worthy of an Oscar nomination. In Reece Wade he creates a flesh-and-blood character that is both stern and compassionate. His preacher is neither the backward-thinking bigot conjured up in so many Hollywood movies nor the near-perfect paragon of wisdom often portrayed in faith-based films. Wade is, basically, a good man who is struggling to do the right thing even as he makes mistakes along the way.<\/p>\n<p>Ashley Judd&#8217;s fine, subtle performance as both Reece&#8217;s understanding wife and Ryan&#8217;s understanding mother adds an extra layer of heart to the saga. Erin Cottrell, perhaps best known for her role as as Missy in Michael Landon Jr.&#8217;s <em>Love Comes Softly<\/em>, also is quite good as Jenny O&#8217;Brien, the love of Ryan&#8217;s life.<\/p>\n<p>Among the rest of the top-notch cast are Seth Green as Ryan&#8217;s band buddy Dino and Joe Pantoliano as Avi, a likable mechanic Ryan works for before catching his big break.<\/p>\n<p>While some faith-based movies can be seen as sometimes pale imitations of their more secular counterparts (i.e. <em>Persecuted<\/em> and <em>The Fugitive<\/em>), thanks to a compelling, thoughtful script by Howard Klausner (<em>The Last Ride<\/em>),\u00a0<em>The Identical<\/em> is an original. His parable of forgiveness and being true to who your are\u00a0 is enhanced by a very capable cast, the visual creativity of first-time director Dustin Marcellino and some great original music (which, of course, can be heard via a soundtrack album). <strong><em>The Identical<\/em> is Highly Recommended.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Encourage one another and build each other up \u2013 <\/em><strong>1 Thessalonians 5:11<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture. A Star is Born. That would be Blake Rayne who headlines The Identical (opening nationwide tomorrow, 9\/5) in the twin roles of fictional\u00a0 &#8217;50&#8217;s-60&#8217;s rock superstar Drexel Hemsley (read Elvis Presley) and Ryan Wade, the son of a preacher (Ray Liotta) who gets his&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4893,9,13,1085,24,1],"tags":[7290,35,6593,7291,7297,2468,7292,7296,7295,7293,1486,7294],"class_list":["post-5460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adoption","category-christianity","category-family-matters","category-forgiveness","category-movies","category-uncategorized","tag-the-identical","tag-1-thessalonians-511","tag-ashley-judd","tag-blake-rayne","tag-dustin-marcellino","tag-elvis-presley","tag-erin-cottrell","tag-howard-klausner-the-last-ride","tag-joe-pantoliano","tag-michael-landon-jr-s-love-comes-softly","tag-ray-liotta","tag-seth-green"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&quot;The Identical&quot; unlike any faith-themed film you&#039;ve seen before<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2014\/09\/the-identical-unlike-any-faith-themed-film-youve-seen-before.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;The Identical&quot; unlike any faith-themed film you&#039;ve seen before\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture. A Star is Born. That would be Blake Rayne who headlines The Identical (opening nationwide tomorrow, 9\/5) in the twin roles of fictional\u00a0 &#8217;50&#8217;s-60&#8217;s rock superstar Drexel Hemsley (read Elvis Presley) and Ryan Wade, the son of a preacher (Ray Liotta) who gets his&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2014\/09\/the-identical-unlike-any-faith-themed-film-youve-seen-before.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-09-04T17:50:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-09-04T17:51:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John W. 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That would be Blake Rayne who headlines The Identical (opening nationwide tomorrow, 9\/5) in the twin roles of fictional\u00a0 &#8217;50&#8217;s-60&#8217;s rock superstar Drexel Hemsley (read Elvis Presley) and Ryan Wade, the son of a preacher (Ray Liotta) who gets his&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2014\/09\/the-identical-unlike-any-faith-themed-film-youve-seen-before.html","og_site_name":"Faith, Media &amp; Culture","article_published_time":"2014-09-04T17:50:21+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-09-04T17:51:03+00:00","author":"John W. Kennedy","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2014\/09\/the-identical-unlike-any-faith-themed-film-youve-seen-before.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2014\/09\/the-identical-unlike-any-faith-themed-film-youve-seen-before.html","name":"\"The Identical\" unlike any faith-themed film you've seen before","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-09-04T17:50:21+00:00","dateModified":"2014-09-04T17:51:03+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2014\/09\/the-identical-unlike-any-faith-themed-film-youve-seen-before.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2014\/09\/the-identical-unlike-any-faith-themed-film-youve-seen-before.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2014\/09\/the-identical-unlike-any-faith-themed-film-youve-seen-before.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"&#8220;The Identical&#8221; unlike any faith-themed film you&#8217;ve seen before"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/","name":"Faith, Media &amp; Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - John W. Kennedy","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2","name":"John W. Kennedy","description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations &amp; Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. He can be reached for writing, producing and consulting services at 516-640-1182.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/author\/jkennedy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5460"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5465,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5460\/revisions\/5465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}