BOUND

Starring Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly, Bound is a story of Violet and Corky, a mobster’s girlfriend and an ex-con who fall in love. But, because Violet’s boyfriend is trigger-happy mobster Caesar, their love affair must be secret. When Violet comes up with a plan to steal $2 million from Caesar and frame the theft on one of Caesar’s mob partners, she needs Corky to help her pull it off. Things don’t go quite as planned, and Corky and Violet are forced to improvise in order to stay alive and stay together.
Beyond being an exceedingly entertaining, edge-of-your-seat thriller with all the violence any true lover of crime dramas could crave, what sets Bound truly apart from all the other films in its genre is the way The Wachowskis build the characters of Corky and Violet, the way they make them three-dimensional, much more than props or tropes to further the narrative. Looking back, one could see that Lana and Lilly Wachowski saw themselves in Corky and Violet; as two women trapped in a world in which they didn’t fit, busting to get out, to express themselves, to break barriers and defy the expectations put upon them. In exploring, building and bringing Corky and Violet to life, the Wachowskis were able to find a voice for their societal frustrations, using their artistic vision to bring characters to the screen that were contrary to what Hollywood generally permits there. The result is a film that features characters that are not only groundbreaking, but stand the test of time.
(Catherine Springer, Awardswatch)