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Created Jul 23, 2009 11:20PM PST • Edited Mar 17, 2019 07:07AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   This tremendously entertaining caper movie starts kinda’ campy – Girl-on-Girl meets Goodfellas – but ends as tense and surprising as movies get. Sexy, thrilling and funny, the movie features indelible performances, endless and endlessly entertaining plot twists, amusingly hardboiled dialogue, and assured filmmaking by genius auteurs Larry and Andy Wachowski, later of The Matrix fame.

   Jennifer Tilly’s sexually omnivorous moll lusts after Gina Gershon’s butch dyke from the git go, a dangerous obsession made more so when they sting a suitcase of literal blood money off Joey Pants’ mafia capo. It becomes a very tangled web indeed.

   The movie’s weakness is its lame title. Just as Moon was done in by being under-titled, so Bound doesn’t begin to sell this movie. What, Goodgals was taken? Perhaps Two Much For One Man wasn’t available either. Even Double Crossing Dames might’ve worked, combining the retro feel with the Sapphic angle.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Gina Gershon – knockout babe and terrific actor – makes an ultra handsome butch, with a perfectly sneering mouth, olive skin, and a powerfully feline physique. Sadly her voice lacks interest, perhaps because the Wachowski Brothers have her play in a cool monotone, kinda like Johnny Depp’s Dillinger.

   Jennifer Tilly – the chesty breathy queen of her era – was born to play the role of ambitious moll. She too displays a curiously limited emotional range, stunting an otherwise excellent performance.

   Joe Pantoliano – hugely entertaining as a wiseguy worthy of the sobriquet – deserves enshrinement in the Mafioso Hall of Fame. First this and then headless Ralphie Cifaretto on The Sopranos. Joey Pants is a Made Man Moviestar.

   Chris Meloni – pre-Law & Order SVU and Oz – delivers an effective turn as a stupid hothead Mafia prince.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

   Joey Pants kills it.

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

   Gershon and Tilly, great but too understated in their line readings.

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    High concept, well executed. Bound – the Wachowski brothers second produced screenplay¹ – was their first feature in the director’s chairs. Thus they proved masters of non-FX filmmaking in their debut effort,² following it up three years later with The Matrix, their monster success that instantly became the new benchmark of FXcentricity. That pretty much bookends the waterfront.

    ¹ Stallone’s Assassins being the first.

    ² Big art department, big sound department, small FX crew, single stunt man. That last don’t seem right, but the others make perfect sense.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

12. Play Really Great 4.5

    Amongst the great lines, this butch classic: “If there’s one thing I can’t stand about sleeping with women, it’s all the fucking mind-reading.” No argument from this guy.

    I love a movie with a great last line, and Bound’s got one. Won’t quote it here in the interest of avoiding spoilers. Movies with great last lines are like Dylan songs: ended with craft and purpose.

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Horrid 3.6

    Entertainingly crude: discreetly filmed yet explicit girl-on-girl sex; bloody interrogations involving pruning clippers; fabulously spirited blue-rants. There are times when you won’t be able to look away and other times when you’ll have to cover your eyes. Badda bing, badda boom.

17. Sex Erotic 3.5

18. Violence Savage 3.7

19. Rudeness Nasty 3.6

21. Reality

    Glib 1.3

    Theatrical yet grounded, unlike Speed Racer and The Matrix, the Wachowski’s later explorations into high rFactors.

    Jennifer Tilly complements Gina Gershon’s labrys tattoo, apparently a lesbian symbol. Who knew.

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

23. Biological Glib 1.8

24. Physical Natural 1.0