Another Gay Movie: Bound

"Another Gay Movie" is a series of posts contributed by TNG gadfly and frequent commenter "Adam Isn't Here."

Sweaty lesbian sex! Fast talking mobsters! Severed fingers! Two-million dollars in blood soaked cash! The Wachowski Brothers have their bases covered in their 1996 directorial debut, Bound.

In 1996, The Wachowski Brothers made a well-received and mildly commercially successful neo-noir, lesbian/mob, heist movie for a mere four-and-a-half-million dollars then faded into obscurity, never to be heard from again.

Would that it were so.

I’ve got nothing against the Matrix movies. Really. It’s just difficult for me to look at this objectively without the shadow of The One looming over the whole ordeal. Well, that and they made an Alan Moore comic adaptation (something dear to my heart) and as we’ve learned, that’s something you should never do. Questionable decisions made in the interim aside, Bound is a real fire-cracker.

It begins with a recently paroled Corky (Gina Gershon) settling into her new honest job as a general-service handy-lady, renovating the apartment of a man with a suspiciously Italian-sounding name, if you catch my drift. Everything is coming up roses, and she’s well on her way to rehabilitation. That is until an elevator encounter with the buxom Violet (Jennifer Tilly) results in a smoldering-stare-off behind the back of Violet’s oblivious mobster boyfriend, Ralphie Cifaretto. Corky is all leather jackets and pick-up trucks and Violet is all lip-liner and cleavage. They’re a match made in butch/femme heaven.

After that, it doesn’t take long before Corky’s fingers are all up in Violet’s lady-parts. I saw the movie when it first came out, and remembered the sex, but now I half expected it to play like straight-guy bait in a way that my fourteen year old brain was unequipped to recognize at the time. Honestly, I’m no more well-versed in the mechanics of lesbian sex today than I was then (what, do they like, scissor?), but these girls go at it in a seriously steamy, close-up, explicit way. Which isn’t to say its all tits and lips and body objectification. It actually seemed totally real to me. Ladies, you’d know better than me. Do you buy it?

After a couple roll-arounds together, and a pretty great dialogue about the butch/femme dynamic, Violet gets around to propositioning Corky for help in depriving her boyfriend of two-million dollars that she knows will be lying around. And Corky accepts.

I’m going to argue here for necessity of the aforementioned sex scene. Sure the promise of two attractive ladies getting naked and scissoring, or whatever, could be a ploy to lure a bunch of horny guys into your movie. But I don’t think that’s it. These two girls have just met, barely know each other, and need a reason to even want to trust each other enough to try and pull off a heist against violent mobsters who would surely kill them if they’re caught. Sure they’re both women desperate for a way out of something, and neither has a lot to lose. But without the dynamite sex, could we really believe that these two would follow each other to the ends of the earth? I mean, I know what it feels like after you’ve just got-it-on with someone you don’t really know but is stupid hot, and it goes fucking perfect and you’re both left breathless, slightly light-headed and blissed the fuck out. It’s kind of indescribable (and I’m kind of giving myself a hard-on). That’s the way these girls feel, I’d imagine.

But I digress. They make a plan and it’s on. In most respects this is a really straight-forward, noir-ish caper flick. Violet is every bit the mobster moll, Corky is the hard-boiled, straight-talking tough-guy, and Ralphie Sifaretto is…well…Ralphie Sifaretto. I’m not eager to spark debate on what is and isn’t noir, but I will say that I think Bound is more noir in style than in substance. But it’s not short on style. They use lots of camera-trickery, mostly to great effect, the dialogue is punchy and clever, and the sets are beautiful. I’d be remiss not to point out that these guys had obviously watched a few Coen Brothers movies prior to making this, and that the worm-holey structure probably would not have been employed if Pulp Fiction hadn’t blown every one’s heads off a couple years earlier. It’s hardly a new observation. I’m just a prick like that.

A caper flick lives or dies by its plot though, and Bound is totally tight. They wind it up, pull the cord and let it all unravel at a perfect pace. Admittedly, I’m a total sucker for a good heist movie, but Bound is top-shelf stuff.

Verdict: Well I beamed all the way through that didn’t I? I liked it more than I remember and I remember liking it. If you haven’t seen it, see it. If you have, maybe watch it again?

Next Week: Is Ma Vie En Rose really a gay movie?