As hard as I found it to forgive the Wachowski brothers for the execrable conclusion to The Matrix series after two passable but badly overrated instalments, I have to admit that Bound, their debut, is pretty damned good; even, possibly, a small classic. Sold as a lesbian film noir, which it is indeed, but in a slightly unexpected fashion, it essentially makes a pretty obvious twist on the standard formula of the genre, where a lonely, alienated, rough-trade hero becomes smitten by a femme fatale and drawn into her double-crossing schemes.
The quirk here is that the regulation hero-schmuck is instead lean hunk of love Gina Gershon, recently released ex-con Miss-Fix-It, Corky. Her new partner in crime and the sack, sultry minx Violet (Jennifer Tilly), defines her relations with mob accountant Ceasar (Joe Pantoliano) and some of his gangland friends as “work”, as she looks for an angle to escape her life as a plaything for rich assholes.
Bound’s use of a strictly limited setting (most of it takes place in two adjoining apartments) and a small, strong cast playing out intricate games in a ticking-clock scenario, replicates the disciplines of classic genre works with unexpected precision, with the added pleasures of contemporary, punchy sex and violence, and some well-described characters.
Gershon, as suave here as she ever was in her brief moment of stardom, is a pleasure, but Tilly’s one-note performance doesn’t match up, making it easier for Pantoliano to wrap the movie around his little finger, in an epic performance mixing hysteria, malevolence, and pathos. His demise is a beautifully Hitchockian moment. There’s also a wonderful contribution by John P. Ryan as his vicious overlord with a latent romantic streak.
