For their first movie, director/writer team the Wachowski brothers set out to push the boundaries of the increasingly overworked film noir. Amazingly, that's exactly what they do with Bound, renewing the genre's erotic dynamic with not one but two femme fatales in a strange, dark, funny, sexy movie.

Fresh out of jail, ex-con handywoman Corky (Gershon) moves next door to Violet (Tilly), moll to minor Mafia hood Caesar (Pantoliano). Violet makes goo-goo eyes and bares her tattooed cleavage to Corky, who's soon rejigging her plumbing and responding to lines like, "You must be pretty good with your hands." Before you can say Double Indemnity, Violet's suggesting a scam that involves ripping off her man - and therefore the mob - for $2 million. Corky again succumbs to temptation, and the plot contorts through several flushed-with-self-consciousness set-pieces to a satisfyingly physical denouement that hinges on the eternal question: how far can two women really trust each other?

Bound will doubtless attract much attention for pushing the hot! steamy! two-girl lesbian action! between Tilly and Gershon, but anyone looking forward to spending an hour and a half in a darkened room with a mac on their lap is in for a disappointment. Porn performance artist Susie Bright is credited as a "technical consultant", and the sex is discreetly handled. Indeed, after Gershon's eye-rolling display in Showgirls, this constitutes mere hand-holding behind the bike-sheds. Besides, Bound has much more interesting areas to probe, and the Wachowskis seem intent on marrying the Coen's crazy camera angles with the heated twists of Bryan Singer's Usual Suspects. Shot with a love of chrome and steel - and never wasting the acting ability of walls, ceilings and telephone wires - it's a taut, stylish tease.

But there are definitely holes in the film. Some of the girl-power one-liners are irritatingly pat - "if there's one thing I can't stand, it's women who apologise for wanting sex" (zigga-zig-ah!) - and for a 'hardened' ex-con, Corky is inept, getting caught and beaten up with clockwork regularity. But the performances are knowing and gleeful, especially Pantoliano as the cuckolded Caesar, a thankless homophobic role.

As the broads say of the ganglord, "He'll believe you because, deep down, he'll want to." Likewise you'll buy into Bound for its stealth, style and absurd bravado. It's the next seduction.