Thriller Thursdays: Bound - A 90s cult classic!

In our weekly column, Thriller Thursdays, we recommend specially-curated thrillers that’ll send a familiar chill down your spine.

The two femme fatales at the centre of the story are on the brink of forming a partnership to steal two million dollars and the only thing holding them back is trust. Because if one of them doesn’t pitch in with her part, the other is doomed. Corky (Gina Gershon) tells Violet (Jennifer Tilly) - “Stealing’s always been a lot like sex. Two people who want the same thing, they get in a room. They talk about it. They start to plan. It’s kind of like flirting. It’s kind of like foreplay. Because the more they talk about it, the wetter they get. The only difference is I can f***k someone I just met, but to steal, I need to know someone like I know myself.”

Bound is then about the shifting sands of trust. And because the Mafia’s involved, the matter is at the core of the equations, and also how fear is always outweighed as soon as something even akin to love comes into the equation. This nifty, tightly-drawn thriller from the Wachowskis is the first film from the directors, who went on to make the iconic Matrix series, and though completely different in genre, is a portent of great things.

Violet and Corky are next-door neighbours in a condominium. Corky settled in an apartment to repair it for its owners, and Violet staying in hers with her husband Caesar (Joe Pantoliano), who is basically a money launderer for the mafia. They meet in a lift as Violet enters it with Caesar. Corky — tough, tattooed, and Violet — feminine and glamorous, and it's lust at first sight.

As Corky begins her repair work in the apartment Violet comes by with two cups of coffee and she tells Corky - "I am in awe of people who can fix things. My dad was like that. We never had anything new. Whenever anything was broken, he would just open it up, tinker with it a little bit and fix it. His hands were magic."  Her husky voice carries meaning way beyond their message. Corky is sardonic and ironic, possibly her natural defence against exploitation, the small-time hustler that she is. As Violet's come-hitherness keeps moving a notch higher by the second, Corky examines it from all sides and then gives into it completely.

Corky is, of course, looking for a sexual relationship, after five years spent in the jail. And them becoming lovers is almost preordained. Their love scene is urgent, breathless, shadowed and dimpled. As the camera scans their writhing bodies, the slow fuse of their prolonged garrulous foreplay finds its resolution in the throes of complete surrender.  It's an inflexion point. Violet wants to leave her tension-riddled life, and Corky is all-ears, as she understands there is money to be made.

Caesar had recovered money stolen from the business, and it was to be picked up by a gangster Gino Marzzone (Richard C. Sarafian), and his loose cannon of a son Johnnie (Christopher Meloni). In this maelstrom of crossings and double-crossings, Violet and Corky hope to slip out with the money. So what ensues is true mayhem.

The chemistry which Tilly and Gershon bring is nothing short of incendiary. Which makes us believe their transition from lust to love to trust. Seeing them on screen together is to know they will either burn something or get burnt themselves. Both are fabulous as they match and then merge their native street-smartness with their mutual hunger to opt-out of their bruising male-dominated worlds.

The film, in a way, is the story of their transition from shit to shiftiness to shelter. But they would have been lesser if not counterpointed by the brilliance of Pantoliano as Caesar, who gives the character so much perspicacity that you can almost see the levers of his crafty mind working out survival scenarios. Alas, he makes the mistake which every man in this world does — he thinks he understands his wife.

The film is shot sumptuously with a hungry eye for detail, as it finds, and lingers on the soft curve of a perfect calf muscle, a tattoo on a breast, black nail polish juxtaposed to a workman’s unkempt nails, the garishness of blood in a white cistern, the quiet coverlet of white paint on a bullet-ridden body. The camera guides us into the deliciousness of an unscrupulous world. It’s supplemented with a sound design where a telephone ring is as sharply defined across the thin walls of adjacent flats as are the moans of lovemaking. At a crucial point, one can hear spit transverse a terrified Caesar’s throat. The Wachowskis have taken a little roguish tale of the mob and their molls and made it a complete sensory experience.

Bound was made on a tight budget, but seeing its sophisticated unravelling, it is hard to fathom the fact. With time, it is now considered an LGBTQ classic — but more than that as a wonderfully stylish noir caper. A wicked little gem to treasure.

Trivia:

1. The cinematographer Bill Pope and the directors, the Wachowskis, loved comics and were deeply influenced by Frank Miller's series of Sin City whilst filming Bound.
2. The Wachowskis made Gina Gershon study the work of Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Clint Eastwood for her role of Corky.
3. Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon prepared for their big sex scene by drinking tequila, and it was filmed in one continuous shot. The directors, the Wachowskis thought that this would look far more authentic than jagged shots stitched together.

You can watch Bound here.

(Views expressed in this piece are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of OTTplay)

(Written by Sunil Bhandari, a published poet and host of the podcast ‘Uncut Poetry’)