‘Bound’ Is Suspense With An Attitude
“Stealing is a lot like sex,” says the tattooed ex-con, Corky (Gina Gershon), to the voluptuous femme fatale, Violet (Jennifer Tilly), in “Bound.” “Two people get alone in a room together and talk about doing it, and they get more and more excited.”
The difference, says Corky, is that to steal with someone, she’d have to know them really well.
“Bound,” is that kind of movie - trashy, flippant and full of attitude and twists.
It’s a sardonic film noir for the ‘90s in which the biggest twist is that the stranger who gets suckered into helping the femme fatale pull a double-cross on her lover isn’t a man - it’s another woman.
Indeed, “Bound” devotes its first half-hour to some of the steamiest and most explicit lesbian seduction scenes that a mainstream movie has yet dared - with the lingerie-clad Tilly, who’s all breathy suggestions and old-fashioned pulchritrude, giving the heavy come-on to the wary but vulnerable newcomer (Gershon, of “Showgirls”), who wears tight T-shirts and carries heavy tools.
Tilly, as Violet, is the unhappy mistress of Ceasar (Joe Pantoliano), a money launderer for the mob, and Corky is doing plumbing and painting in the apartment next door. When the gals learn that a suitcase full of freshly laundered cash - in the amount of $2 million - is also sharing the apartment with Violet and Ceasar, awaiting pickup by mob boss Gino (Richard Sarafian), they devise a nervy plot to steal it out from under the wise guys and leave Ceasar to take the blame.
But of course, things don’t go exactly as planned, and soon there are more people getting whacked than in a Martin Scorsese movie. First-time directors Andy and Larry Wachowski are brothers, like Joel and Ethan Coen (“Blood Simple,” “Fargo”), filmmakers whose sensibilities and camera style they clearly admire. Though “Bound” is not as well-crafted or crazily inventive as the typical Coen brothers’ fare - in fact, without the lesbian twist it’d be a fairly pedestrian Tarantino knockoff - the Wachowski brothers do keep the suspense wound fairly tight, and the movie makes decent if unexceptional entertainment. Trouble is, with no redeemable characters in the bunch, there’s only titillation to keep you interested, and there’s not much of that once the plot kicks in.
xxxx “Bound” Locations: North Division cinemas Credits: Directed and written by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon, Joe Pantoliano, John P. Ryan, Christopher Meloni, Richard Sarafian Running time: 1:44 Rating: R