This neo-noir thriller is a terrific feature debut by the Wachowskis, with its careening twists and turns, and upending of gender codes, as two women must work out a survival plan after an opportunistic ‘heist’ gone wrong. 

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This is such a thrill to watch, the kind of film where you can’t wait for the next moment to happen.  It is also a terrific feature debut by Lana and Lilly Wachowski, and it is hard to believe that their next feature would be the landmark sci-fi actioner The Matrix (1999). 

The Matrix is still one of my favourite movies of all time, so it is instructive in retrospect to see Bound paving the way for how certain elements so ubiquitous in the former, particularly the use of phones, were used both symbolically and stylistically. 

Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon play Violet and Corky respectively, who ogle at each other in a chance encounter in the lobby of their apartment building. 

It is that kind of steamy film in the first act as the Wachowskis give us a sensual and erotic mini-rendezvous between the two women. 

This is oblivious to Caesar (Joe Pantoliano), Violet’s volatile lover, who finds himself in an ultra-shitty dilemma when he realises that the millions of dough he obtained for an untouchable mob boss are now missing. 

“That’s funny, I’m feeling a little bit curious myself.”

The women know something about it, and although Bound is plot-heavy with its careening twists and turns, it never feels like we are just taken for a ride. 

There is something more in it, and this is where the Wachowskis strike gold—that their film would have been another sleazy and violent run-of-the-mill neo-noir thriller if not for their exploration of gender codes in genre filmmaking. 

In this powerful world of men, their guns, torture devices, and one-upmanship, Violet and Corky are the last women standing. 

Equally scheming and passionate (Corky teases that planning a heist is like foreplay before sex), they are not dissimilar to the likes of, say, the titular duo in Thelma & Louise (1991), or the protagonists in Love Lies Bleeding (2024). 

As the title Bound also suggests, there is a need to free ourselves from the bondage of life’s certainties and take that metaphorical leap of faith, something that the Wachowskis would explore further—and with stunning effect—in their Neo sci-fi. 

Grade: A

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