Bound is a smart, sexy, suspenseful, stylish thriller, conceived by none other than the creative genius team known to the world as The Wachowski Brothers. By mainstream standards, it's edgy. It's erotic. It's vile. It's edge of your seat. It's a lot of fun.

The high contrast visual design makes the look a mesh between comic book and film noir style cinematography. Harsh lighting, extreme emphasis on the characters' facial outlines, and dramatic yet simple sets, all lend themselves perfectly to the film's subject genre: The Perfect Caper. Pulling off the ultimate heist against the mob itself.

The protagonists, played by Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly, meet (um, yeah, that's called chemistry), sparks fly (not literally, mind you), and the two of them hatch a plot to free themselves from the mafia regime, leave with a suitcase full of cash, with no one ever becoming the wiser about either of them.

Throughout this movie, I counted one scene which relies on an otherwise smart character doing something stupid to drive the suspense along. One fault like that isn't bad, especially when comparied to many movies, but for a film whose central plot is a battle of quick wits and cunning, it is a negative mark, albeit a small one. Suspend disbelief momentarily.

Joe Pantoliano, an actor we all know and love by now (Memento, The Matrix. The guy may be a nut, but come on, he's great!), is humorous and menacing as the would-be crime boss. The goonish, maniacal, self-back-patting king of his own little world. lol.

I suppose if we wanted to talk about the movie from a pseudo-feminist social criticism perspective, it could be said that the movie portrays women in a positive and empowering role. The theoretical common popular culture cliché (if you follow the memes which propagate some of the more left-leaning circles of thought) would dictate its female/lesbian characters tear each other down and inevitably succumb to the wishes of the dominant male. Either that, or be killed off and written out of the plot with good haste. In this movie, rather than falling into that trap, the women gain strength and fulfillment by trusting one another and banding together, thus dispelling the myth of the all-dominant patriarchy.

But I know nothing of such things. Nothing, I tell you!

I suppose if we wanted to talk about the movie from a pseudo-masculine horny monkeys perspective, um... Dem chicks are hot!

But now, I can see that this rambl^H^H^H^H^H movielog entry is coming the end of its insightfulness, if any insightfulness there ever was. And I need to sleep. Sheesh. It's after 5am already! A good movie, a log entry, and now sleep. Yes.