Bound

Part skin flick, part scam film, part black comedy, part gore fest, Bound is stylish and engrossing. It's tension bound.

Two Chicago women meet and begin a relationship. One of them is living with a Mafia heavy, gets hold of some inside knowledge, and the two of them decide to steal two million dollars from the mob.

They are fully aware of how dangerous this scam is; the Mafia girlfriend (played by Jennifer Tilly) has witnessed enough murder, very recently, in her own apartment to know exactly what might be in store for her and her new friend if they get caught, and knows exactly how these bastards in the "business" operate.

Her lover, played by the pouty Gina Gershon, who lives right next door, knows the mob when she sees it. She's just spent five years in jail for theft.

These women are sexy, scared, wary, but also greedy and decide to take on the challenge.

We know from the opening scene that something must go very wrong later in the film; a woman lies bound and bleeding in a cupboard. We're also left with no illusions about the sexy relationship these women enjoy; but then again it's not very long before gallons of blood are spilt pretty much before our eyes.

The threat and the sex is obvious. And these women are sexy. Jennifer Tilly, who we've seen as the blond, multi-adulterous client for Jim Carrey in Liar Liar, reprises her vapid blond with the squeaky voice character that earnt her an Academy Award nomination in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway, but beneath the stupid blond on the make routine there lies a tough resourceful woman who wants out (with her two million dollars and new girlfriend.)

There have been plenty of films where a couple form a relationship and then set out to deceive others; with the audience wondering whether one will betray the other; wondering about scams within scams.

The difference here is that the scammers are both female.

Nearly every shot taken of Tilly is a long, long pan upwards from ankle height of her slinkily dressed body; or alternatively a close up of a face which combined with the voice she uses is a sensual come on, especially when she's with Gina Gershon.

Gina Gershon was that girl in the unfortunate Showgirls; the one who thrashed about so willingly and ridiculously in that swimming pool on the end of a penis, something like a flailing King George whiting scewered on a fleshy hook.

But I'd imagine that she was hired to do Showgirls for the same reason she was hired for bound. Bound is well worth seeing.