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.
