Starring Jennifer Tilly and her pumped-up boobs as the fem, Violet, who is the paid concubine of gangster, Ceasar (Joe Pantoliano, in a performance as chilling as any psychotic-break inspired Joe Pesci special), and Gina Gershon as the butch Corky, who gets hired by the always absent owner of the building to fix everyone's pipes, especially Violet's.

Apart from the harried opening shot panning a closet (until it finally shows a bound-and-gagged Gershon right next to the six-inch spikes in their appointed little cubby) there are no other reasons for calling the movie Bound. Dykes in the closet, hmmmm.

As the story unfolds, Gershon rides an elevator in the building with Pantoliano and Tilly, and while the money-laundering gangster stares oblivious at the elevator door, Tilly proceeds to "water" the prospects of either a meaningful religious experience with Gershon, or just a simple quickie. Look for a cameo of Susie Bright in the following bar-scene.

Cut to the seduction scene. If there were awards for performances to set back lesbian-feminism, Tilly would take home the gold. After placing Gershon's hand in every conceivable place on her body, feigning girl-talk as reason to run fingertips over a booby-tattoo, erping, "I just love the way it feels…". Give me the strength!

Well….As you've probably fingered out… Gershon eventually gets elbow-deep into her friend. I have to admit, that although as a lesbian, I would object to any dyke's taste in wanting Jennifer Tilly for anything more than an afternoon's delight, the character of Corky has depth and reality and shows that either Gershon is an incredible researcher of the parts she portrays, or her gate swings both ways. I'd say she probably was the one standing on the register in the "10 Lesbians or Less", line. She'd get my vote for the part. Scan this, sweetheart.

The pair quickly declare undying love for each other and proceed to set up a scam to steal over $2 million from Ceasar and the mob. Although the plan should have gone the way the curt Corky schemed, they get what they want, but not the way they wanted it. It is then that, momentarily in the film, we find that Corky got locked in the closet after being "Bound", hence the straight-guys get lesbians and bondage during a quick 30 seconds of the film.

The movie, Produced, Directed and written by Larry and Andy Wachowski, whom I fail to find in a directory that lists any past accomplishments of these brothers, smacks of conflicted messages about the community of womyn-loving-womyn. Butch-femme roles, lesbians-as-thieves, lesbian murderesses. Baby, it has all that, but it still has the one good point of the heroines getting away with it because, after all, they might have been Mafia men, but they were still men.

Although the sexuality is a bright point of the film, on the whole I wouldn't recommend it unless you're straight, male and desperate for whacking material. The whole precept seems a straight male's ("Can I watch?") take on what two womyn together would do to their hormone levels, "if only someone in Hollywood would produce my wet-dream!"