Movie Muser

Back before they were the directors of The Matrix and when Lana was known Larry, The Wachowskis took the indie film world by storm with the stylish neo-noir Bound. Now the film has come to Blu-ray with a crisp HD print, which is perhaps a little duller than you might hope for a film where splashes of vivid colour are so important, but stills looks extremely good.

Corky (Gina Gershon) is an ex-con working as a handyman in an apartment when she meets the next door neighbours, the Mafia-linked Caesar (Joe Pantoliano) and his girlfriend Violet (Jennifer Tilly). The two women become lovers and hatch a plan to steal $2 million of the mob’s money that Caesar has in their possession. While they think they have everything planned out, the scheme starts to go awry when Caesar doesn’t act as expected.

It’s tense, sometime funny, sexy and endlessly stylish. It’s also a great slice of neo-noir and particularly fascinating to watch now, as you can see the first hints of The Matrix’s bullet-time, with the Wachowskis playing with time in ways that directly echo their later movie but on a much lower budget.

The Wachowskis obviously know their noir movies (which is again something they showed in The Matrix), with a similar if more self-consciously stylised way of filming things, which helps draw you into its world of moral grey areas, where the good guys might actually be as bad as the bad guys. Indeed it’s interesting in the special features where the composer talks about how he saw Caesar as a somewhat sympathetic character (something many have suggested since), but the Wachowskis disagreed as to them he was a villain.

There’s also the film’s much talked about lesbian side. It’s an interesting movie in that regard as for every person who’s held it up as a great example of bringing homosexuality into films as a natural extension of the story and showing genuine erotic chemistry between women, there’s been another who’s found it to be an example of adding lesbianism into a film unnecessarily for the appeal of male eyes, and to give the movie an extra marketing hook.

You can see both sides, which is partly structural – Gina Gershon’s character disappears for a huge stretch of the running time, so you can understand why some might feel she was just added for the lesbian sex scenes – but it also demonstrates one of the biggest hurdles to getting LGBT people into movies. In Bound the women don’t ‘have’ to be LGBT, they just are. However the usual (if annoying) rules of the movies state that if a gay or bisexual person shows up, there needs to be a point to the fact they aren’t straight. As a result, people are looking to why these woman are having a relationship, and because there’s no definitive reason – other than they like one another (although there is the suggestion Tilly may be using Gershon, but if she is, she could just as easily be using a man) – many see it evidence that it’s either tokenism or just to lure in horny men.

There are often calls for more LGBT characters in films or TV shows, but so often if characters are included who just happen to be queer, people see it as ‘pointless’ or attach a negative reason to it based on what happens to that character, whether the same thing could have happened to a straight character or not.

To be honest I’m never sure with Bound, as while I don’t doubt the Wachowskis sincerity, there is an edge that the glossy lesbian sex scenes are more for male eyes than purely to show the intensity of the women’s relationship. It doesn’t help that traditionally in film noir, a hint of lesbianism in a femme fatale was evidence of how damaged and dangerous she was, and how she was the ultimate threat to the power of men.

Even so, it could be a lot worse and the film does ensure that these are two women who genuinely feel like they could have embarked on a relationship (rather than Hollywood’s tendency for two women who look like they just fell out of a Barbie box to get it on, while assuring the audience that really they prefer men). And it remains one of the few examples of a movie where both the protagonists in a mainstream thriller are women in a lesbian relationship with one another.

This new Blu-ray edition also includes a great selection of special features, quite a few of which include discussion of the film’s sexuality and the intention behind it, as well as looks at how they created the movie’s impressive visual style on such a small budget.

Overall Verdict: A very entertaining neo-noir caper where you can see the beginnings of The Matrix. The lesbian side may still be somewhat contentious, but it works.

Special Features:
Audio Commentary with Writer/Directors the Wachowskis, Stars Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon, and Joe Pantoliano, Editor Zach Staenberg, and Consultant Susie Bright
Femme Fatales – Interviews with Stars Gina Gershon & Jennifer Tilly
Hail Ceasar! – An Interview with Actor Joe Pantoliano
Here’s Johnny! – An Interview with Actor Christopher Meloni
Modern Noir: The Sights & Sounds of Bound
Vintage EPK Featurettes (US & International Versions)
Theatrical Trailers
TV Spots
Still Gallery Images

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

It’s always a shame when you can see what a movie so desperately hopes to be, but it falls incredibly far short. Killing Season wants be a tense cat and mouse thriller, with a serious backdrop looking at the horrors of war and the way it affects people after the battle is over. Unfortunately it ends up just being a bit silly and over the top.

It’s a particular shame as this is the first time Robert de Niro and John Travolta have appeared on-screen together.

Travolta is the Serbian Kovac, a veteran of the Bosnian War who travels to the US to find Benjamin Ford (de Niro), the man he blames for things that happened to him and his squad during the Eastern European conflict back in the 1990s. He’s determined to get the truth and to do so he initially befriends Ford. However when they go out hunting together the next morning, Kovac reveals his true plan. A cat and mouse chase ensues, with both men revealing secrets about what happened 18-years before.

It sounds like a decent premise for a film, but it too often mistakes winces with creating tension (there are a surprising amount of pretty gross moments), and while its attempts to ensure its ‘war is hell’ message gets across, it does it in such a dull and obvious way – ensuring you’re smacked over the head with it every five minutes – that it lacks any impact.

It doesn’t help either that Travolta appears to be doing his best comedy Eastern European accent and sports a beard that looks like stuck on iron filings, while de Niro mainly seems to be running around the woods looking for his paycheque.

There are a few effective scenes and the initial set up certainly holds out the possibility of a tense and interesting movie, but that quickly dissipates once the two aging stars start trying to kill and torture one another.

Overall Verdict: Two veteran stars and a decent premise are wasted by a lack of tension and a serious backdrop that it fails to make much out of.

Special Features:
‘Making Of’ Featurette

Reviewer: Tim Isaac