Bound 1996, Rated R

Buy it from

Starring Gina Gerson, Jennifer Tilly, et al.

I think Jennifer Tilly enjoys being a woman more so than any other female on the planet. No other woman or actress quite possesses the je ne sais que that Tilly has. Simply by walking from a couch to the bar in her living room, Tilly positively radiates femininity. Like Chris Tucker's energy and Julia Ormond's strong conviction, Tilly's femininity is not a quality that one would expect to translate well on the celluloid medium, but she positively shines on camera.

Written and directed by Chicago first timers Andy and Larry Wachowski, Bound is one of the freshest, most well crafted films to have come along in some time. It's a rare occasion where I am positively overwhelmed by the style and tone of a production, but such was the case with Bound.

The story line isn't very complex: Violet (Tilly) and her lesbian lover, Corky (Gina Gershon), plan to steal two million dollars from Violet's connected husband, Caesar (Joe Pantoliano). However, the Wachowski brothers twist and turn this uncomplicated idea into a fairly tangled web of intrigue.

More so than anything else though, it was the Wachowski's style of direction that impressed me in Bound. When it comes to direction, I am rather easily entertained. Throw in a couple of clever camera angles, control the pacing of the cuts and the film, and include some visually stimulating camera movement and I'll rave about your work. However, there is a catch-22 to this situation. These little extras take a fair amount of time to visualize, set up, and then shoot, and are things that established directors like Joel Schumacher or John Badham don't need to do anymore to separate themselves from the rest of the pack. The only directors who consciously choose to have their films filled with lavish flair and garish style, with the notable exception of Brian DePalma, are the unknown and first-time directors wishing to make a name for themselves. Enter the Wachowski brothers and their first film, Bound.

Cinema, by definition, is a visual art, but unfortunately there aren't many mainstream directors that choose to cater to this like the Wachowskis. Time and time again, I would feel myself start to smile at the way they blocked different scenes, shot different lines of dialogue, or even events as small as blood flying onto a toilet. The brothers also proved to work well with the actors, as Tilly, Gershon, and Pantoliano all deliver solid performances.

In retrospect, the budget for this film could well have been under two million dollars, but while screening Bound this thought couldn't have been farther from my mind. I wasn't sure what to expect prior to screening Bound, but I'll tell you this, I sure as hell didn't think I was going to see one of the more delightfully sharp directed films of the decade. You should see this film, if only to serve as a basis for knowing what good direction is.