Movie date: Careful What You Wish For (NC16)
This is one “erotic” thriller you will not wish on anyone — except maybe Jonas Brothers fangirls.
STARRING: Nick Jonas, Isabel Lucas, Dermot Mulroney
DIRECTOR: Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum
THE SKINNY: Doug (Jonas) is a squeaky clean young man who is heading off to a good college. But a torrid affair with his older, married neighbour Lena (Lucas)
threatens to derail his bright future, especially when her investment banker husband (Mulroney) is found murdered. Doug becomes a suspect, adding fuel to the scandal, a multimillion-dollar life insurance policy is at stake.
RATING: NC16
THE CONSENSUS: This is one “erotic” thriller you will not wish on anyone — except maybe Jonas Brothers fangirls.
MARS
One of the most interesting things about the movie business is that it is chock-full of untalented people.
Movies have so many moving parts that it is often impossible to pinpoint who is responsible for what, and so mediocre talents can coast by for years without being discovered.
Who, in the end, is responsible for crud like Careful What You Wish For?
Who knows? More importantly, who cares?
The story is basically Body Heat Lite, or maybe Teen Body Heat would be a better description.
It is a femme fatale thing, like we have seen a million times before.
That said, the problem is not that we have seen this sort of stuff so often, it is that it has been done so much better.
You will never find a plot more predictable, or performances more perfunctory.
I could live with all that, but the thing that really bugs me is that it is ostensibly an erotic thriller and yet, there is basically no nudity.
This may sound crude but my main takeaway from the flick is that Jonas is strictly a leg man because he never once bothers to take Lucas' top off when they are getting jiggy.
It actually comes to the point that it is distracting, because it is just so ridiculous.
If you do not even like breasts, dude, then what is the point of letting this chick lead you astray?
- JASON JOHNSON
Rating: 2/5
VENUS
This should have been retitled The Nick Jonas Show.
I have seen video clips of the US singer-actor's earlier work - and I am not talking about his Camp Rock days - that required him to act, and I was rather impressed by his abilities.
He is the only Jonas brother who has actively stretched his wings over the years by working in TV series and on Broadway.
And now, he finally has a movie to call his own.
So I was not surprised that the former Disney star turns in a decent performance.
What is truly irksome, however, is the casting.
Sure, Jonas ticks all the boxes when it comes to being the romantic leading man.
The hunk is also ready to do his part when it comes to upping the sleaze factor with his various states of undress, which I am sure will delight his female fans.
But to trot out Lucas as the seductress?
Sex appeal aside (which the Australian actress has in spades), at 30, Lucas is only eight years older than Jonas.
I do not think the age gap is wide enough to classify her as a "cougar". Her youthful demeanour makes her look too immature for the role.
Despite looking fabulous as a couple and doing a serviceable job individually, their chemistry just does not sizzle.
And they just cannot save the thinly written plot that tries too hard to be clever.
- JOANNE SOH
Rating: 2/5
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