8/10. Would have been higher than "8" had there been more sex on screen, especially between Violet and Corky. When bluenoses complain about 'sex and violence' in movies, what they really mean is that they don't want sex diluting their violence. To them I say: Stick to video games.
Comparisons are odious, so let's compare this movie:
"Bound" is not in the same league as such great gangster dramas as "The Shield" (on FX TV, and now on DVD) or "L.A. Confidential," probably because the ambiguities of the cop perspective are inherently more dramatic, and hence more interesting, than the simple-minded gangster world.
But "Bound" is better than "Wild Side" (either version), which is similar in theme and structure to "Bound," but "Bound" is a more polished and more dramatic movie.
"Bound" is much better than "Miller's Crossing," which seems more like a low-budget amateur stage play than an actual movie. "Miller's Crossing" has big empty sets, and big empty characters. "Bound" is just as stagey, but the sets are richer, and the characters are much more interesting -- equally unrealistic, of course, but that's part of the fun of the noir genre.
And "Bound" is much, much, much better than the Warchowksis' 'other' movie, "The Matrix," which I consider an incoherent failure -- explained in detail in my comments. I don't know if the popularity of "The Matrix" reflects the failure of American education, or the failure of the war on drugs, but one would have to be either irrational, or stoned, or both, to overlook the lapses in "The Matrix."
Comparisons are odious, so let's compare this movie:
"Bound" is not in the same league as such great gangster dramas as "The Shield" (on FX TV, and now on DVD) or "L.A. Confidential," probably because the ambiguities of the cop perspective are inherently more dramatic, and hence more interesting, than the simple-minded gangster world.
But "Bound" is better than "Wild Side" (either version), which is similar in theme and structure to "Bound," but "Bound" is a more polished and more dramatic movie.
"Bound" is much better than "Miller's Crossing," which seems more like a low-budget amateur stage play than an actual movie. "Miller's Crossing" has big empty sets, and big empty characters. "Bound" is just as stagey, but the sets are richer, and the characters are much more interesting -- equally unrealistic, of course, but that's part of the fun of the noir genre.
And "Bound" is much, much, much better than the Warchowksis' 'other' movie, "The Matrix," which I consider an incoherent failure -- explained in detail in my comments. I don't know if the popularity of "The Matrix" reflects the failure of American education, or the failure of the war on drugs, but one would have to be either irrational, or stoned, or both, to overlook the lapses in "The Matrix."