According to one academic, the film gives a more sympathetic depiction of de Sade than usual, presenting him "as a roguish, swashbuckling anti-hero; a red-blooded, flamboyant and slightly ridiculous epicurean, whose pleasures are curtailed by his incarceration in the Bastille, facilitated by his outraged mother-in-law... He is presented as a Three Musketeers-style hero."[4]
Psychotronic Video said "Mancuso is too good for this project and has lots of (too much actually) dialog."[3]
References
^"TV Guide". Showtime Guide. October 1996. p. 14E.
^"New releases". Citizen Register. 6 November 1997. p. 89.
^ ab"Reviews". Psychotronic Videos. No. 24. 1997. p. 15.
^Krzywinska, Tanya (2006). Sex and the cinema. p. 206.