John Wilmot, otherwise know as the 2nd Earl of Rochester, was a 17th Century libertine who made Casanova look like a puritanical zealot, but unlike his more famous brother in arms, John was a poet of considerable talent, a genius that his consumptively nihilistic behaviour kept well hidden from most of those who knew him during his hedonistically short life. The Libertine does well to capture the seedy affluence of 17th century high society and this an often enjoyable tale of a gifted, wilfully doomed man, but it has lost something in its transition from theatre to film, and though bawdy it's all together too dark to slip into the easy niche of period romp.