GIRLS TOGETHER OUTRAGEOUSLY
"All night long, I listened to the sound of money." - Violet (Jennifer Tilly)
If you're Married With Children, sooner or later you're going to have "The Movie Conversation:"
Significant Other: "Let's go to a movie!"
Only Child: "Can we, Daddy? Can we?"
Da Flatline: "Sure, why not. Whatcha wanna see?"
SO & OC: "D3: The Mighty Ducks!"
DF: "Uhh..."
SO: "What? WHAT?"
DF: "Well...what am I going to get out of this one that I didn't get out of D1 or D2?"
This is a conversation that's very easy to lose at -- as happened a few weeks back, when I was forced to endure JINGLE ALL THE WAY. Not this time. The girls went to see Emilio Estevez and his Foregone Conclusion on Ice -- I went to see Betty Boop and Chrissie Hynde fall in love and rip off the Mafia.
We're talkin' BOUND (1996).
We're talkin' one of those twisty little neo-noirs that often gets (wrongheadedly) pegged as "post-Tarantino." We're talkin' blood, skin, foul language, bad attitudes, crime, punishment, flashy camerawork, enough split-second plot twists to keep your eyes glued to the screen, and a lesbian nookie scene that pushes the film's R rating so far I can't believe Howard Stern (noted Sappho-phile) hasn't been raving about this flick non-stop for the past three months.
BOUND opens quite literally: Corky (SHOWGIRLS survivor Gina Gershon) is lying, bound and gagged, in a closet, trying to figure out just what went wrong. She's an ex-con diesel dyke who, upon exiting the Big House, has been hired as an apartment janitor. One day in the elevator, she meets her neighbors: Caesar (Joe Pantoliano), a low-level Mob money launderer, and his moll Violet (Jennifer Tilly). Violet and Corky make eye contact on the ride up, and the heat radiating between the two is a palpable thing. Before long, Violet is knocking on the door of the apartment Corky is fixing up, asking her help in retrieving an earring that fell down the drain. By this point, it's almost no surprise when Violet admits she sank the earring herself just to get Corky alone with her. And while their initial clinch is interrupted by Caesar's ill-timed return, it's not long before the girls are going at it hot and heavy.
If Caesar seems oblivious to the inter-girl smolder...well, he's got his own problems, in the form of a Syndicate accountant who's been skimming funds. In one of BOUND's queasier scenes, Corky is doing some plumbing work in the bathroom when she hears Caesar and some Mob torpedos torturing the accountant next door with both fists and tin-snips. Violet, who stays carefully disconnected from Caesar's nastier activites, is still surprised the night he runs in, clutching two million bucks in blood-stained bills -- the blood courtesy of the embezzler, who was shot over the loot by the local Don's hot-headed son. While Caesar becomes a literal money-launderer -- washing, ironing, and hanging the soiled bills to dry -- Violet concocts a scheme whereby she and Corky will steal the two mil and leave Caesar holding the (now empty) bag, while pointing the finger of blame at the Don's kid. And, like any good caper film, things don't go exactly as planned...
The first film of brothers Larry & Andy Wachowski (they'd scripted Stallone's ASSASSINS) makes excellent use of its small cast and intimate (in every sense of the word!) settings; if some of the camera moves come across as a little too tricksy (read: Coen Brothers-like), it's understandable as the work of first-timers out to make a major impression. Pantoliano, high-strung and snappish as ever, comes into his own after realizing he's been ripped off and going into an increasingly panicky "cover-your-ass" scramble. Veteran screen heavy John Ryan (IT'S ALIVE, RUNAWAY TRAIN) exudes courteous, soft-spoken menace as the tin-snips wielder.
But it's the girls that really bring BOUND to life. Gershon -- grimy, tattoo'd, leather-jacketed, and thoroughly deglamorized -- plays Corky with grit and resourcefulness. And while I still think a little of Tilly's squeak goes a long way, her "kept woman" displays ever-increasing levels of both brains and backbone (no "shrinking Violet" she!). Big-sister Meg may have the better boobs (as displayed in Abel Ferrara's BODY SNATCHERS remake), but Jennifer has world-class legs which, combined with her bee-stung lips and sleek black wardrobe, make her resemble a goth Clara Bow.
See BOUND with someone you love
-- of either gender! 
While Jen and Gina are busy smooching, "bound" on over to:
This page hosted by  Get your own Free Home Page |
||
 Send mail to dflat@juno.com |
Back to Da
Homepage!  |