Most critics respond warmly to Bound, with five of the seven reviews praising its stylish crime plotting, dark humour and performances. Praise centres on Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly, whose chemistry gives the familiar noir setup a distinctive charge, while the inventive camerawork and economical direction draw admiration. The favourable reviews find wit and suspense in the caper’s mechanics, treating the film’s debts to earlier thrillers as compatible with lively entertainment.
The spread is wide, with two strongly negative reviews challenging precisely what the others enjoy. Variety finds the plotting increasingly contrived, the style excessive and the characters neither believable nor sympathetic. Time Out goes further, dismissing the central lesbian relationship as a calculated gimmick in a neo-noir with no ideas of its own. The main divide is over whether the familiar crime setup provides room for playful invention or merely supports an exercise in borrowed style.