Critical response Roger Ebert, film critic for the
Chicago Sun-Times, liked the film but questioned the complex screenplay. Yet, Ebert was appreciative of the acting and wrote, "You see what I mean when I call the movie operatic. It glories in brooding vengeance, fatal flaws of character, coincidence and deep morality. Its plot is so labyrinthine that it constitutes the movie's major weakness; can we follow this convoluted emotional journey? Its passions are so large that they are a challenge to actors trained in a realistic tradition, but Hurt, who has the most difficult passages, rises to the occasion with one of the strangest and most effective performances he has given." His television partner
Gene Siskel hated the film and put it on his worst of 1988 list.
Vincent Canby was not so kind to the filmmakers or the actors. He wrote in his review for
The New York Times, "The movie includes some big, unimpressive battle scenes, a number of orangey sunsets, a lot of comic-strip dialogue ('I'm going to get revenge!' 'He's dead - he'll never forgive me now') and one memorable moment in which the silhouette of a gentle, southern California mountain range fades into the silhouette of a man lying on his death bed. The performances are not good."
The Washington Post was just as tough on Nava and Thomas. Film critic Rita Kempley said, "Hurt's role as a vengeful psycho churns up this laughable purple potboiler, but even the perennial
Oscar nominee can't save it from itself." ==Soundtrack==