The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

What is acting? Will you find it here? Is it too harsh judging the people involved in this, because of the script/direction? Are any of the twists worth your while? The answers to those question can only be given by yourself. And while the Baldwin involved in this, has made a name in movies like this, the question is, if you have the time and strength to watch this.It's not that the characters are despicable from the get go. But while the movie progresses and relationships get established you do wonder, why you're still watching this. Now if you meant to watch this, because it promises sizzling erotic and/or nudity, you can also forget about that. While the main actress might appeal to many (men and women respectively), her character is all over the place and does not help the viewer understand what the other characters are going through because of her ... Not recommendable ...

If this direct-to-DVD crime thriller had an appropriate level of sex and violence, it might have been almost tolerable. Don't get me wrong. Bound by Lies was never going to be good in any meaningful sense of the word, but it could have been an adequate slice of low brow entertainment. After cramming a car chase, gun fight, explosion and furtive glimpse of breasts into the first 5 minutes of the movie, however, the rest is nothing but a bunch of actors stumbling through an inane plot while mouthing even more inane dialog. There's no nudity, no action, no comedy, no drama. It just slowly deflates like an ugly party balloon.Max Garrett (Stephen Baldwin) is a detective just back from suspension after a fiasco where he got a suspect killed and a witness disappeared. The movie opens with Max being interrogated about the disaster, interspersed with flashbacks to what happened. Max turns in his gun and badge for a 6 month suspension, then the story jumps forward to Max back on the force and none of the stuff that happened at the beginning has anything to do with the rest of the film. The witness who disappeared does not come back or anything like that.The reason Bound By Lies begins this way is obviously because someone realized the rest of the movie was duller than the proverbial dishwater and threw in an explosive prologue to try and disguise that for as long as possible. After that reasonably exciting opening, we see Max and his wife Diana (Gladys Jimenez) and get a brief look at her boobs. Then I watched the film for another half hour, waiting for more sex and violence, before it dawned on my that there wasn't going to be any. So, while I'll tip my cap to these filmmakers for tricking me, I'd also like to put my boot in their ass for wasting my time and attention.Getting back to the narrative, Max is called out to a dead body in an alley and meets his new partner, Lieutenant Eddie Fulton (Charles Malik Whitfield). Eddie thinks it's an open and shut case but Max wants to investigate and winds up interviewing Laura Cross (Kristy Swanson), an artist who lives in a building off the alley and takes bondage photographs. Kristy Swanson does not get naked in this movie. Randi (Natassia Malthe) is Laura's lesbian assistant. Natassia Malthe does not get naked in this movie. I'm emphasizing that to make sure you don't waste your time with this thing.Anyway, at first Max suspects Laura of being a killer, then it turns out her building's super (Kevin Chamberlin) is the killer and Max has to guard Laura while the super is on the loose. Max discovers an architecturally dubious attic where he can look through peepholes into Laura's loft. An art critic gets killed. Max and Laura fall in love. The super kidnaps Max's wife, leading to a rooftop showdown where the super ties himself to Laura with 50 feet of wire. No, the 50 feet of wire thing doesn't make any sense in the film, either. And to repeat, there's no nudity or violence while any of that is going on.The performances of Swanson, Stephen Baldwin and the rest of the cast are perfectly acceptable for this sort of thing. The direction of Valerie Landsburg is also perfectly acceptable for this sort of thing. The overpowering problem is that this sort of thing needs to have, and usually does have, a goodly portion of sex and violence. People taking off their clothes. People getting punched or shot or set on fire. Stuff getting blow'd up real nice. And there's none of that in Bound by Lies after the fraudulent first five minutes.This movie isn't aggressively horrible, but it is without any redeeming value. If you want to see Swanson and Baldwin in a film that succeeds at being an adequate slice of low brow entertainment, go rent Zebra Lounge. Do not spend any of you precious moments on this nonsense.

This clunker-stinker was just on ShowTime Too ... thank goodness I was actually working on the computer! Just hearing the insipid banter, throughout this waste of celluloid, was enough to make me actually BEG my wife to turn it off. She replied: (many times) "I can't turn away from this train-wreck!" And, yes, as noted by another poor reviewer who lost two hours of his life; even a bloated Kristy Swanson couldn't rescue this film version of nails on a blackboard. And as for Baldwin ... I don't think any explanation is needed? I would suggest that two hours of watching the Weather Channel is time better spent; you might actually catch a plot line and the ending will be far better!

I am a completely biased person. I adore Stephen Baldwin and everything he does. He's just so darn cute. The "sex scene" was kind of disappointing because I wanted to see more of Stephen's hot body, but I wasn't disappointed with what I got to see. I loved the movie. If you've seen other films of Stephen's you know that he is a very versatile actor. From brooding cop(Bound by Lies) to dorky idiot(Biodome) he handles it all and does an amazing job. Hes just so damn HOT! I love that man. Bound by Lies isn't much of a surprise ending but the filming is amazing. The film sometimes seems to drag a little but Stephen makes it all worth it, since he's in almost every shot. so sexy. Signing out from Canada his Number 1 fan. Luv ya Stephen;)