Bound, a film noir thriller from first-time directors Larry and Andy Wachowski, is a delicious guilty pleasure, a cross between Pulp Fiction and Basic Instinct only better and happier. Made by straight men with lots of Hollywood bucks, it is sexy, scary and violent. Gina Gershon, still on the rebound from the embarrassing Showgirls, is a butch dyke named Corky. She has a labrys tattoo on her shoulder, a '63 Chevy and an innate ability to make a sneer look inviting. Recently released from jail, she is doing some building work for a local gangster and cruising the lesbian watering hole for easy lays including, in one cameo, the sexpert Susie Bright.

Jennifer Tilly is the super femme, Violet, living next door with her Mafia connected boyfriend. They eye each other up in the elevator. Corky cannot keep her eyes off Violet's stilettos. Violet cannot help but stare at Corky's leather jacket. She is used to getting what she wants, and she wants Corky, a woman savvy enough to know that dating a mobster's moll can be deadly. Few interactions in this violent milieu are about love or loyalty. Most, especially Violet's relationship to her boyfriend, are about money. She views her relationship with him as work not sex and initially lures Corky into her liar by losing her earring down the drain. Their tumble into bed is confident but scary. Corky is stunned that Violet even knows what a labrys is and does not really believe that she is a lesbian and there is the ever present threat of by Violet's vicious boyfriend. When he ends up with over two million dollars to hold in his flat overnight, they concoct an elaborate plot to steal the stash and disappear together forever. Filmed in comic book style that makes fools out of authority figures, this is one of the few colour films that is successfully film noir in feel, a style that hasn't worked since the 40s in films such as The Big Sleep. For that, black-and-white film stock and cloud clouds of cigarette smoke were enough to make the film mysterious and enthralling. In Bound, it is the sets that are stylishly black, grey and white with the only spots of colour coming from blood and the deep burgundy of Violet's lipstick and nail polish. It would be easy to dismiss this film by saying that this is merely straight men's view of what lesbians are and do and is for their titillation. But why should they have all the fun? The lead actresses are to die for. The outfits are drool-inducing. The sex scene is divine. The labrys symbolism is dated but cute. The script is passable with a few clangers. But who cares? The tension is taught keeping you on the edge of your seat and the sexuality is enough of a turn-on to send you under it.