MOVIE REVIEW : A Mistaken ‘Identity’ From Lane

“True Identity” could have been the best thing that ever happened to director Charles Lane. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out to be the worst.

That would be a shame, because even in its ineffectual moments, of which there are many, “True Identity” reveals Lane to be a filmmaker with a very engaging sensibility and nicely idiosyncratic comic style. His humor is sly, and the points he makes about interracial relationships in society are no less telling for being delivered with a gentleness that puts him at the other end of the spectrum from fellow African-American filmmakers Spike Lee and Matty Rich.

Lane’s whimsical sensibility and social consciousness were first joined in his debut film, “Sidewalk Stories,” a bargain-basement number about homelessness that Lane wrote, directed and starred in. Shot in black-and-white and using intertitles instead of sound, “Stories” was not a complete success, but it showcased such a singular talent that studio offers were sure to follow. Joining him to “True Identity,” however, turns out to be anything but the best way to bring his world view to a wider audience.

Screenwriter Andy Breckman, whose other credits include “Arthur 2: On the Rocks,” wrote this script in 1986 based on a “Saturday Night Live” sketch he’d done for Eddie Murphy. It’s not a failure of Hollywood nerve that kept this little item from being produced for so long, it’s that its flaws (many of which flow from the fact that sketch ideas are not an ideal source for feature material) far overshadow whatever entertainment value it provides.

“True Identity” (citywide) centers around an aspiring young black actor named Miles Pope, who dreams of doing Othello. But instead of playing in “Raisin in the Sun,” he ends up impersonating raisins in commercials. On the return flight from one such ignominious outing, Pope finds himself seated next to the very wealthy Leland Carver (Frank Langella). When the plane hits a wind shear and everyone thinks they’re going to die, Carver impetuously (and a tad implausibly) reveals to Miles that he is in fact Mafia kingpin Frank Luchino, thought dead for five years but in fact transformed via plastic surgery so the FBI won’t recognize him.

Naturally, the plane refuses to crash, and once safely on the ground Carver/Luchino feels he must kill Miles to protect his secret. Miles, in a desperate attempt to hide, allows his best friend and special-effects expert Duane (a funny, Woody Allen-esque role for Lane himself) to turn him into (gasp!) a white man.

Miles is played by British comic Lenny Henry and, helped by hours of special makeup, his scenes as the world’s most ill-at-ease Caucasian are genuinely amusing. The idea of race-change comedy is not new, and Lane in fact acknowledges this by giving a cameo to Melvin van Peebles, who directed Godfrey Cambridge as a white bigot who wakes up black in “Watermelon Man.” Yet Lane and Henry, a very appealing, agreeable actor with a light comic touch, combine to squeeze new smiles out of it.

What then, is the problem? It resides in the plot, a pathetic, contrived affair that gets more and more tedious as the minutes tick off. Worse than that, “True Identity” (rated R for language) turns out to be one of those films that feels it necessary to twin comedy with violence, spending half its time pretending it’s a lame parody of “GoodFellas.” Charles Lane’s sensibility does manage to emerge from this morass, but you leave “True Identity” not applauding his talent but rather wondering why he couldn’t find something less anemic to utilize it on.

‘True Identity’

Lenny Henry: Miles

Frank Langella: Carver

Charles Lane: Duane

J.T. Walsh: Houston

Anne-Marie Johnson Kristi

A Touchstone Pictures presentation in association with Silver Screen Partners IV, released by Buena Vista Pictures. Director Charles Lane. Producers Carol Baum and Teri Schwartz. Executive producers Sandy Gallin and Howard Rosenman. Screenplay by Andy Breckman. Cinematographer Tom Ackerman. Editor Kent Beyda. Costumes Abigail Murray. Music Marc Marder. Production design John DeCuir Jr. Art director Geoff Hubbard. Set decorator Karen A. O’Hara. Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (language).