Bound movie review & film summary (1996)

As the film opens, a tough but sexy woman is moving into a new apartment. She rides the elevator to her floor with what looks like a mobster and his ditzy girlfriend. He's a mobster, all right, but she's not as ditzy as she looks. It's more of an act that gives her immunity in a dangerous environment.

The sexy newcomer is Corky (Gina Gershon), a lesbian who has just finished serving a prison sentence. The mobster is Caesar (Joe Pantoliano), a mid-level functionary in the Chicago crime syndicate. His girlfriend is Violet (Jennifer Tilly), whose lust for their new neighbor is so obvious she might as well just turn herself in to Jerry Springer and get it over with ("Violet -- afraid to tell Mafioso boyfriend she's a lesbian").

Violet creates an excuse to meet Corky; she uses the routine about her ring falling down the sink. In old movies this was a ploy to trap men, but for about 10 years I've noticed that the only movie characters who seem to do household tasks anymore are lesbians. There's always a scene early in the movie showing them caulking something.

Passion between the two women is instantaneous, steamy and kind of funny. Gershon and Tilly are electric together, maybe because they understand the humor of their situation and play the sex for delight instead of for solemn earth-shaking gynecological drudgery. The movie seems to be shaping up as an erotic popcorn-masher, but then the plot thickens and keeps on thickening, twisting the characters and the audience ever tighter into a sticky web of murder, blood, sex and money.

Violet and Corky have secret tete-a-tetes, and vice versa, and become lovers. Violet whispers that she wants to escape Caesar so the two women can start a new life together. So far she hasn't been able to get Caesar to listen. ("Caesar, I'm leaving!" she announces. "Why?" he whines. "Did I use a good towel?") Violet tells Corky that a bag man named Shelley (Barry Kivel) is arriving at Caesar's, with $2 million in cash. She thinks they should steal the cash, and she needs Violet's help--since as an ex-con, Violet is presumably an expert criminal.