Jonathan's good luck - which, of course, is anything but good in a thriller with the unsubtle, not to mention uninteresting, title Deception - comes by way of his new friend, Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman). This chummy fellow, with his $4,000 suits and art-adorned apartment, appears to be your typical, hard-charging, lord of the universe type. The two meet while Jonathan, a lowly accountant, is auditing the books for a big firm. After hours, the two men share drugs in the conference room.

A cell phone switcheroo a couple of days later leaves the meek Jonathan with smug super-lawyer Wyatt's portable device - and a rendezvous with Natasha Henstridge, playing an anonymous beauty who belongs to "The List," a rich clique of sex-hungry swingers who seek "intimacy without intricacy," as one of them explains.

But all is not as it seems. Not for Jonathan, anyway.

Audiences, on the other hand, will see the chicanery coming all the way down Fifth Avenue. Deception, directed by award-winning commercials guy Marcel Langenegger, is the kind of putative erotic thriller where handsome actors thrash and groan in artfully lit rooms, in various states of undress, while the accompanying plot devices (phone mix-ups, building superintendents) have neon arrows pointing at them.

Michelle Williams, who began her career playing a vixen-ish high schooler in TV's Dawson's Creek, joins the proceedings as another of the leggy Listers whom Jonathan liaises with. But Jonathan and Williams' character - he knows her name begins with an S - already share a history: He saw her once on the subway platform, and she asked him for directions. Their assignation for hot sex is tainted by the fact that they are already so clearly, and deeply, in love.

Simultanously silly and sleep-inducing, Deception eventually brings in blackmail, embezzlement, arson and the sort of mega-scale electronic money transfers that have become essential components of the modern thriller. Cue the taut, suspenseful music, watch the beads of sweat form on the stars' faces, and keep your eyes glued to the progress bar as it inches toward completion on the laptop screen.

Deception ** (out of four stars)

Directed by Marcel Langenegger. With Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor and Michelle Williams. Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox.

Running time: 1 hour, 48 mins.

Parent's guide: R (sex, profanity, nudity, violence, adult themes)

Playing at: area theaters