Don’t tell his momma, or his wife. But there’s something just right about casting Dermot Mulroney as an ex-con.

He’s got the look. Hell, he’s had it all along. But damned if that rough-hewn, more-rugged-than-handsome-mug wasn’t in “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” “The Family Stone,” lots of movies in which Dermot M. had no trouble at all passing for a sensitive romantic lead.

Mulroney’s at that “Here’s another offer to play a heavy” stage of his career, and in “Breakwater,” he’s all the richer for it, no matter how tiny the paycheck.

“Breakwater” is an indie thriller about a young ex-con (Darren Mann) send to find a “long lost daughter” for her “dying” daddy, the Old Man of the Yard in a prison in coastal Virginia.

The young guy, named “Dovey,” as in “Lovey Dovey,” only figures out that his prison mentor was using him when the hardened lifer busts out to settle matters with that “daughter (Alyssa Goss) after Dovey’s reported back that, yeah, that’s her, using a different name but running a bookstore in Currituck on the Outer Banks of N.C.

What has Dovey done? What can ”Eve” do? Will she let the gullible Dovey help her get out of this fix? Because at many a juncture, jailbird Ray has shown he’s capable of things and probably of a mind to do his worst.

Mulroney’s Ray charmed and counseled Dovey, warning him about “the straight and narrow” and how life for an ex-con has a “long way down, each side” set of choices.

But when he shows his true colors, staging his escape and calculating how long it’ll take “help” to arrive before plugging a guard, he’s downright sadistic.

“Ain’t no place to get shot better’n an ambulance!”

Goss, of TV’s “Bruh,” is convincingly salty as Eve, aka Marina, a single mom leading lighthouse tours and running a book shop full of “beach reads,” but more than willing to offload a few F-bombs to take the genteel edge off. She’s convincingly salty in other ways, showing off her 38 foot ketch to Dovey, who is a skilled swimmer and ex-con’s son who’s worked on the water — crabbing — his whole life.

Mann manages the unworldly side of Dovey with ease, letting him almost get mauled by the first barmaid he stumbles across when he “gets out” (Mena Suvari, in kinky mode).

And Carolina native filmmaker James Rowe, who’s made two films in 25 years (“Blue Ridge Fall”) really hit the jackpot with little Ezra DuVall, playing Eve’s little — VERY little — girl in documentary-real strokes.

“Breakwater” was shot in “Hollywood East,” as it used to be called — in and around Wilmington, N.C., with a little filming, from the looks of things, at the Currituck Lighthouse. Movies filmed there have a vivid sense of place about them — swamp and sand and salt-scented sea breezes, funky little fishing villages and crab shack tourist towns.

I know this part of the world well, and I loved the film’s grounding in that sense of place and appreciated the lack of false notes in the performances, the action beats and the generally unfussy plot.

This “simple” genre thriller is entirely too simple for its own good. It feels so familiar that we’ve seen it all before. But even if it never transcends its genre, Mulroney, Goss, Mann and the rest of the cast keep “Breakwater” pretty close to above water, start to finish.

Rating: R, violence, sexual situations, profanity

Cast: Darren Mann, Alyssa Goss, Sonja Sohn, JD Evermore,
Daniel Williams-Lopez, Ezra DuVall, Mena Suvari and Dermot Mulroney.

Credits: Scripted and directed by James Rowe. An XYZ Films/Vertical release.

Running time: 1:37