Some very classy bits to watch out for. Well worth waiting for the video.

Rating: 5/10 (3 January 2004)

Typical problems of making a good flick on the basis of a true story. Truth seems to sort of stifle the creative juices. Having read the actual story, I'm afraid I had trouble following the movie, at times. It starts out in a French prison, but I don't recall anyone saying why he was actually in prison in France. I thought the movie version of his becoming a doctor was a bit raw and quite abrupt. The true story involved a much more natural flow of events and would have made a neat segment. I guess they needed a certain treatment in order to make transitions from one part of the story to the next. And they did a pretty good job of stitching the whole thing together, even providing (creating?) a background of family issues to explain, in a way, how he happened to get into his chosen lifestyle. Some very classy bits to watch out for. Well worth waiting for on video.
BTW, lest anyone think that Frank's lifestyle would be fun to emulate, you should know that he spent a lot more time in prison than what appears in the movie. In real life, he nearly died in the French prison. And he has been working hard since then to prevent others from doing what he did.