Wannabe sexy 'Careful' shoots for steamy, but merely damp

Elizabeth Allen's neo-noiry potboiler "Careful What You Wish For" hails from the grand tradition of sexy thrillers such as "Double Indemnity" and "Body Heat," yet never quite works up the level of steamy passion and explosive emotions its plot and characters require.

Nick Jonas, lead singer of the boy band Jonas Brothers and a recurring actor on the Fox horror/comedy "Scream Queens," brings a genuine naiveté to Dougie, a high school grad working summer jobs at a North Carolina seaside community before heading off to college.

His summer doldrums disappear when he spots the blonde, willowy Lena (Isabel Lucas) wearing all-white while walking on a dock, her swooping hat brim coyly hiding her face as Dougie watches enraptured.

Lena is married to Elliott Harper (Dermot Mulroney), a wealthy investment banker (is there any other kind?) who lives near Dougie's unassuming middle-class parents.

Harper travels a lot. Lena needs help with such things as a spider on her dashboard and breaking into her own house after she locks herself out. Dougie is eager to render aid.

Pretty soon, the ignored wife and the infatuated teen start performing the dance of the wild bunnies everywhere they can, even outside the backdoor of a local store with her husband only a few feet away.

Dougie would do anything for Lena, and he proves it after the investment banker winds up dead. The teen concocts and carries out a desperate scenario to make it look like a boating accident.

"Careful What You Wish For" lacks the crackling, knowing dialogue of Lawrence Kasdan's "Body Heat" ("You're not too smart, are you? I like that in a man!"), falling back on overused lines such as "I like you ... you remind me of me."

Lucas' Lena is a Xerox copy of a Xerox copy of Darryl Hannah from the 1980s, a character better at projecting vulnerability than smoldering desire and deep mystery.

Paul Sorvino cheerfully chews the North Carolina scenery as the local sheriff, a good ol' boy stereotype who sounds a lot like Rod Steiger's Oscar-winning Mississippi police chief in "In the Heat of the Night."

Chris Frisina's screenplay offers a few modest plot rewards that won't be revealed here. Still, one wonders at the end of the movie why the wily insurance investigator (Kandyse McClure) simply didn't rule Harper's death an accident and spare us the last 30 minutes of toil and trouble.