Review of Bound (1996) by Simon M — 15 Jul 2009

For the longest time you couldn't get me to watch Bound for any reason whatsoever. I saw the Wachowski's boom with The Matrix and like everybody else I was won over by the anime-like stylizations of the brothers. Still I just kinda avoided Bound really for the simple reason that as a lesbian I was completely and utterly worried that the brother's had made some usual "late night on cinemax" movie, and that had no appeal whatsoever.

How wrong I was though. Bound's one of my favorite Neo-Noirs of the 90's and happens to be pretty fricking hot on top of it. Coming across like a low-budget pulp paperback(ya know with the yellow pages and titles like "Sisters in Sin!") and almost entirely set within the neo-gothic confines of some Mafia hotel(great use of limited sets in that regard), Bound feels like classic dirty-filthy-cool Thompson noir.(though it's a lot more optimistic) The baddies are bad, the heroines are tough(and subversive) and the suspense is killer.

Also Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly are really hot, but then I'm simple.