Bound
(TW: This is a really sketchy movie with poor depictions of BDSM and maybe a possible assault but we’re not sure. Like, honestly, we don’t actually know for sure because this movie is so bad. So be ye warned.)
So I’m at the video rental place (yeah, that’s still a thing in Wisconsin. Shut up) with my best friend when I stumble across this little jewel.
Ladies and gentlemen, Bound is a Fifty Shades of Grey knockoff by the makers of Sharknado 2: The Second One and it stars a Baldwin Brother. Life does not get better than this.
So after we tucked her kids in and shouted “GO TO SLEEP!” about 9000 times down the hall, my friend and I settled in for a journey of epic WTFery.
The movie opens with Michelle (Charisma Carpenter) getting boned by a dude with an unfortunate wolf tattoo on his back. We immediate realized that Charisma’s boobs were going to feature heavily in this film. Wolf tattoo–boobs–BAM! Right out the gate.
So Michelle clearly doesn’t get off on wolf-dude’s missionary thrusting. Her upper class LA ennui is compounded by her teenage daughter, Dara, being a teenager and also by some shit going down at work. Michelle works for some real estate firm with her dad (Daniel Baldwin) and shenanigans are going down. We’re being sold! Pretty sure Daddy Baldwin said the firm lost $100 million in 2 years? HOLY FUCKSTICKS BATMAN! But Michelle is all “No, acquisition! I can save this company!” $100 million in TWO YEARS, MICHELLE!!! Get. Out. Now.
So then Michelle and her boobs take her daughter to dinner, and despite the fact that, using the Amy Schumer video as a possible scale, she likely bid farewell to her last fuckable day 7 years ago, some younger dude named Ryan Black (no fucking joke, Ryan Black) (Bryce Draper) makes eyes at her. At first she freaks but then she drops her daughter at home and they make out and then she freaks again.
Michelle dumps wolf-dude and hooks up with Ryan Totally-Not-Christian-Grey Black, and he introduces her to the world of BDSM.
“What makes you wet?”
“I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before.”
“I just did.”
WE KNOW RYAN. WE WERE RIGHT HERE.
I kinda thought that it would be impossible for there to be a more offensive representation of BDSM than Fifty Shades. Turns out I was wrong.
At one point Ryan asks Michelle, “Are you down?” As in down to fuck. And she doesn’t answer by getting up, flushing his keys down the toilet, and cabbing it home.
Also they bone in Michelle’s daddy’s office, prompting my friend to ask, “So are we just assuming that the super fancy real estate office doesn’t have security cameras?”
Also the line:
“I’m your father. Your master. Your husband. Your god. I’m your daddy.”
There was wheeze laughing.
When Ryan takes Michelle back to her place she finds he has–not fucking with you–a red room of pain. Except this one isn’t nicely upholstered, it’s smoked glass back-lit by pink/red light and I totally expected Olivia Newton John to pop up and bust into song.
“Wait!” my friend bitched. “Where is the 1200 page contract! She has to think about the contract for three days!”
Ryan doesn’t need no fucking contract. He’s your daddy.
So he chains her up in the red room of 80’s music videos and pain, and they have sex (I think? Maybe my vagina is weird but I’m not sure how well that angle works for penetration? Also it didn’t look like they were having sex so much as rubbing against each other like cats). We see A LOT of Charisma’s boobs. I’ve seen them so much I’ve named them. The left is Nellie Bly and the right is Thomasina Kincaide.
The movie hints that Michelle likes being a sub because her everyday life is full of responsibility and stress, but it doesn’t actually go into her choice in any meaningful way.
So then Michelle goes to a super important charity event and Ryan gives her a vibrating bullet to put in her panties. He’s got a remote control. You get the idea. He gets her to call herself a “messy whore.”
That actually is the best sandwich name EVER. I would order that every fucking day.
Ryan acts like a total douchecanoe in front of Michelle’s business partner and the dude who might buy the company. When Michelle tries to save the company that’s hemorrhaging money, Ryan hits the on switch on the vibrator. Imagine the employee meeting later: “So Agnes, we know you’ve been working here for 30 years but you just lost your job because my boyfriend wanted to diddle me in front of the partners. Sorry about that. Hope social security is enough for you to get the good cat food for dinner.”
So, then the next day, Baldwin-Daddy chastises Michelle for bringing Ryan to the charity thing. He tells her that Ryan is/was a car thief and drug dealer. Also at one point Baldwin-Daddy calls his female assistant, “Babe.” I choose to believe that this was an artistic choice on Baldwin’s part.
Michelle can’t keep away from Ryan, though. More sex scenes! Much like Fifty Shades, we get some light spanking and missionary sex. Sad. But then Michelle asks him, “Have you ever been a submissive? Can I spank you?”
Ryan is “not down,” to use his parlance. He tells Michelle that this is his world and she’s “not ready for it.” But Michelle is super intrigued by the idea of being the spanker and brings it up again. Ryan flips his shit and kicks her out.
So Michelle decides to shop for a corset (no! Nellie! Thomasina! Be free!) and goes to a sex club to explore her Domme side and another dominatrix warns her against Ryan, telling her that Ryan gives Doms a bad name. The dominatrix lets her help whip a dude who is wearing, I shit you not, the same sheer catsuit Britney did but in black.
More sex scenes. This time they busted out the smoke machine. At this point my husband showed up and said, “She needs a new filter on her furnace.”
But oh noes! The camera pulls back and the woman Ryan is smexing while bound is… Dara, Michelle’s 17 year old daughter! Who is underage BTW. And we have no idea how Ryan ended up in Dara and Michelle’s home in the first place. When Michelle finds them, Dara cries. She’s sorry! She can’t get out of her restraints! I think Ryan seduced Dara and then she cries because she’s ashamed her mom found them but I honestly don’t know.
Ryan says some really awful stuff and Michelle chases him out.
So Michelle totally calls the po-po right?
NOPE.
Despite the fact that some seriously sketchy statutory rape (if not outright rape–consent was never shown) just went down, Michelle decides to take justice into her own hands. She confronts Ryan and after they get into a fight, she knocks him out. Then she chains him up. She tells him she thought about calling the police but thinks he’ll just worm his way out of jail. She wants to prove to him that she’ll kill him if he goes after her or Dara again.
She hoods him, clamps his nipples, then whips him. We learn that Ryan has a serious medical condition causing him to bleed Hershey’s Strawberry Syrup (good job production department). She breaks his ankle. He promises to be good now.
By now my friend’s husband was watching. We all heard footsteps on the stairs. “GO TO BED!” we all yelled.
Apparently now Michelle is a Domme and works with a bustier under her business clothes. She manages to save the company that’s been pretty much lighting money on fire and throwing it out the windows from being bought (GREAT FUCKING JOB MICHELLE).
The moral of the story?
I don’t even fucking know. BDSM is a thing for child predators and sexually repressed women with daddy issues? You totally don’t go to the police when your daughter is the victim of a sexual predator? Aftercare isn’t a thing? Being a Domme makes you bossy in the boardroom but you still make shit financial decisions?
So yeah, this movie was actually worse than Fifty Shades. Like way worse. I think they had one set and Nellie Bly looked cold all the time. In a weird way it was so bad it was actually enjoyable so I’m F+ing it. You’re welcome.
This film is available on DVD and Amazon Instant Video.
Poor Charisma Carpenter. She’s better than this.
^ agreed. This is sad. I hate knowing Cordy is in something like this.
“She needs a new filter on her furnace.”
OMFG, I am wheezing so hard right now! I couldn’t envision the film, but I can clearly see the drinking GFs watching bad soft porn, the “Go the fuck to sleep!” kids, and the clueless husband walking through the room.
Well done, ladies! You’ve brightened my Monday.
This is a The Asylum picture isn’t it? (checks) Yup it’s Asylum alright. Sounds pretty standard for them. It’s supposed to be bad so I have no clue how one would go about grading that. A for doing what they set out to, F for the actual product?
I’ll be in Wisconsin in August. I totally want to buy you a beer to say thanks for this review.
I am SO jealous of you having a video rental place. I was actually complaining to my husband just last week how I missed the ritual of them, going to one on a Friday evening, looking through all the titles, checking them out… it’s weird the things you miss.
I had trouble wrapping my brain around Carpenter as a sub, mostly because girlfriend has a serious case of Resting Bitch Face (not necessarily a bad thing) that always makes her look like she has time for NOBODY’s shit, regardless of what it is or who it’s coming from. So on the one hand, it’s nice that they took the more common current trope of all women secretly being subs (no issue whatsoever with D/s, but popular media these days would have you believe women can ONLY be subs and ONLY want to be) and expanded it into women discovering their own desires for sexual dominance and deciding to explore them on their own, but on the other, unclear dubcon with a minor and general crappy story and plot makes it sound like I can give this a miss happily.
Related: Because you said Baldwin was Carpenter’s father in the film, the fact that the cover image up there only has his name and hers above her in a “sexy” pose with that guy briefly made me think it was going to be a gross incest film. I’m so relieved.
At first I thought this was a review of the awesome movie of the same name with Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly, and I was confused. Who would give that an F? I was doubting all of your reviews. Color me relieved. And? If you haven’t, watch it. http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0115736/
I’m still trying to get over the mindf**k that Daniel Baldwin is playing Charisma Carpenter’s father and that she is playing someone’s mother!
Thank you SO much for this review. I really needed the laugh today. Also, your husband is hilarious.
Too too bad that there is a wonderful movie by the same title made by the Wachowskis. Is that even legal (says the lawyer) to have another movie with the same title? The other movie, with Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon, is fantastic. One of my all time favorites.
I read this after packing boxes for 4 hours for our upcoming move. It made all my sore muscles dissolve into the bliss of my uncontrollable laughter. Thank you for lightening my load today.
Count me in as another one who thought of the other “Bound” movie! I’m glad this review wasn’t about that film, which was great. This film, though? It reminds me of those cheesy straight to video Shannon Tweed movies from the early 90s! I don’t have to watch it to be able to visualize everything. This review was great; thanks for making me smile on a Monday!
@Dot: I hope you have an easy, painless move! Packing is never fun.
So, I’m sitting here watching Buffy and scanning Facebook as i see a current-ish picture of Charisma Carpenter on my newsfeed. She must really be hurting for work to be in this movie. Yikes.
All the same, that still of her in the red job–the look on her face makes me think she’s either ready to bust out a snarky comment that will blow the place up, or she’s thinking a steady stream of it and it is hilarious and we are all missing out because she’s not using her outside voice.
I saw this…It was too horrible to finish. Kudos to you for getting through it. Ryan’s three word lines drove me nuts! P.S. It is on Netflix for free right now. Keep your cash.
P.P.S. the candles that were always lit in her room were a total WTF moment for me? Who does their make-up in candlelight in a sunlit room? They were always burning…and her house never burns down?
Maybe it’s dumb, but all I can think is Cordelia telling Doyle she wants ‘one of the cheaper Baldwins’ to narrate the Angel Investigations commercial. Like, it’s seriously messing with my brain.
Also seconding (thirding?) the ‘oh no, not Cordy’ sentiment, and the thing Leah said about the ‘WTF Incest?’ moment due to the cover layout.
This movie was terrible….just terrible. But I loved your review! Also, she might not have been getting off from wolf tattoo guy, but honestly she was just lying there doing absolutely nothing! Nor did it show her communicating with him to help them have better sex. A depressing lack of communication. Who knows, maybe he would have liked a dom/sub relationship?
I had forgotten about this movie.Not one of Asylum’s better works but it is Asylum so that’s not saying much.Maybe about a B- of the Asylum scale.