I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

It is hard to accept the fact that I haven't ever heard of this great Neo-Noir, written and directed by the acclaimed Wachowski Brothers (Lana&Lilly) in the early stages of their career which reached its peak with ''The Matrix'' (1999). ''Bound'' is an absorbing crime/mystery with dashes of Hitchcockian suspense, having a solid plotline and great cast such as Joe Pantoliano and Jennifer Tilly who both deliver tremendous performances in their roles of a husband and wife, the former being a made mafioso and the latter a typical 'Damsel in Distress' who searches for a safe exit from the Mob's violent characters and proceedings, while becoming infatuated with her new neighbor (Gina Gershon's character). Tilly's character, acted with a mischievous- almost manipulative- sexiness and cynical determination, hatches a plan to rob her husband of mob money, with the guidance and support from her new lover. But, as always, reality doesn't follow the plan and things spiral out of control with a high body count and Caesar (J. Pantoliano's character) on the verge of a complete breakdown as he finds himself owing to his own mob family a sum of 2.000.000 dollars. The main theme of ''Bound'' is trust between humans and the risks that people are taking, based on the trust to a closely related person. The movie, apart from its references to classic Film-Noir, brought to my mind the early Joel&Ethan Coen pictures and plotwise it will somehow remind you of the superb ''Shallow Grave'' by Danny Boyle. This is a little-known gem that is certainly worth spending the approximately 100 minutes of your precious time and it will leave you wondering why it is so hard to find similar productions in the contemporary era.

So what would you call this - an erotic thriller? A sexy gangster flick? A sleek suspense drama? Hey I got it, Thelma and Louise on steroids!However way you look at it, this is one smooth ride with a perfectly cast mix of deceitful characters who keep you guessing with their motivations and duplicity. Jennifer Tilly is perfectly suited for dumb blonde roles, the only problem here is she's not dumb, and definitely not blonde. Gina Gershon just oozes sexiness, even when she's beaten and tied up by Joe Pantoliano's character, who's got the sleaze factor down just about right. The story is filled with enough double crosses to make your head spin, and doesn't let up on the tension until the very end.From the delinquently fertile minds of the Wachowski Brothers (Lana and Lilly, go figure), this is a finely crafted suspense film that borders on both horror and soft porn, but in a slightly demented good way if you know what I mean. As the viewer you're always kept guessing about that cool, two point one seven million, and when the dust settles and the paint dries, you know that the only difference between Violet and Corky is..., not one thing.

The film noir is a genre widely associated with the 1940s and 1950s. Occasional movies since then have dabbled in the genre (such as Oliver Stone's "U Turn"), but "Bound" is probably the most interesting. Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly play lesbians who scheme to obtain a bunch of money from Tilly's character's mafia husband (Joe Pantoliano). But things don't quite go as planned, leading to some of the tensest moments ever put on screen.The Wachowski sisters (brothers at the time, as they hadn't yet transitioned) say that the movie is about "the boxes people make of their lives", that it is not only gay people who "live in closets". Most of the movie takes place in closed spaces, while Tilly's character is trapped in her marriage.Whatever the case, it's an impressive piece of work. The Wachowskis continued their fine output with "The Matrix" and "Cloud Atlas" (while producing "V for Vendetta"). In the meantime, "Bound" constituted part of the shift in cinema's depictions of LGBT people. I recommend it.

Slick, stylish and easy on the eye, this Nineties' noir kicks into gear with a torrid lesbian affair which triggers a caper that becomes life threatening for everyone involved. Inevitably, not everything goes according to plan and that's when the story's main characters have to use all their ingenuity to try to achieve their objectives. This well-written low-budget thriller is full of twists, humour and violence as well as an ever-present tension that increases consistently as the action plays out. It's this tension and the unpredictability of its characters that really makes "Bound" so gripping and entertaining to watch.After recently being released from a five-year prison sentence, professional thief Corky (Gina Gershon), is given a job as a handy-woman in a Chicago apartment building by one of her criminal acquaintances. It's there that she meets and is seduced by Violet (Jennifer Tilly), a gangster's moll who lives in the same building with her Mafioso boyfriend Caesar (Joe Pantoliano). Caesar's a money launderer who suddenly has $2,000,000 in his possession after recovering it from a bagman who'd been stealing money from the Mob for some time.Disenchanted with the life that she'd been living for the last five years, Violet becomes attracted to the idea of stealing the $2,000,000 so that she and Corky can make a new life together. Corky isn't sure how much she can trust Violet but eventually the two women devise a plan to carry out the theft before local Mob boss Gino Marzzone (Christopher Meloni) calls by at Caesar's apartment to collect the money. Violet's confident that the plan will work, because she knows that when Caesar discovers the disappearance of the money, he'll have to go on the run to save his skin and in so doing, will make it look as if he's the thief.When the plan's put into action, it seems to work relatively well until the point where Caesar discovers the theft and then doesn't react in the way that Violet had expected.First-time directors The Wachowskis did a great job in making this movie so visually impressive whilst also creating the kind of claustrophobic atmosphere that emphasises the danger that the women are constantly in. Additionally, their economical writing style is both intelligent and perfectly fitting for this type of material.The two leads in this movie are quite different as Corky is an overtly butch lesbian who sports a labrys tattoo on her arm while Violet appears to be a conventional moll whose breathy, high-pitched voice makes her seem rather vulnerable. Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly are both faultless in the ways that they bring out the individual characteristics of these women whilst also creating enough uncertainty about their motives and integrity to add strongly to the tension of the piece. Joe Pantoliano is also highly entertaining in the way that he, so effectively, conveys Caesar's unique combination of craziness and cunning.The relatively high body count and copious amounts of blood on view, emphasise how high the stakes are for everyone in the story but its humour, the amusing ways in which Caesar and Violet both underestimate each other and the ways in which the music (particularly by Aretha Franklin and Tom Jones) is used, are all additional elements that add tremendously to the enjoyment of watching this movie which is so much better appreciated now than it was at the time of its initial release.