Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and said the film is "not the best comedy ever made but has energy and local color and a charismatic lead performance by Sasha Mitchell as Spike." He called Borgnine's performance the "funniest in a long time" and added, "The domestic arrangements of a middle-class Mafia household are examined here as hilariously as in
Married to the Mob, and if we do not care much about the final fight by the time it comes, well, neither do the fighters."
Janet Maslin of
The New York Times wrote while the film "doesn't have the sharpest satirical edge...it does have personality".
Kevin Thomas of the
Los Angeles Times wrote the film "has to buck the truth that comedies about Italian-Americans and the Mafia are beginning to wear a bit thin. With his outrageous sense of humor Morrissey turns this seeming obstacle to great advantage only to be slowed down by too much plot. The film begins to lose steam after its first hour and becomes dragged-out. Luckily, there’s as compensation for this drawback--a roster of rousing performances. Newcomer Mitchell is a breezy charmer; Borgnine is fresh and canny in a jewel of a portrayal; Anne DeSalvo is a likeably smart cookie as Baldo’s wife, and Antonia Rey practically walks off with the movie as an exuberant Puerto Rican mother. Best of all,
Spike of Bensonhurst...boasts a finish that takes your breath away in its utter lack of sentimentality." Eleanor Ringel of the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution called it "a real dog of a movie, a strutting exercise in style-over- substance that’s so tickled by its own jokes that you can almost hear it giggling at itself from off-camera." Desmond Ryan of
The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that it "walks the same neighborhood as
Moonstruck, but its estimation of honor and honesty in contemporary American life is strictly out of ''
Prizzi's Honor''; its motto could come from
John Huston's caustic look at the
Cosa Nostra, in which a capo gives this warmhearted praise for hit-woman
Kathleen Turner: 'She's an American. She saw a chance to make a buck, and she took it.'" Ben Yagoda of the
Philadelphia Daily News said that it "is kind of a mess. But you can't help feeling warm toward it. It has a great cast, a lot of good lines and an absolute refusal to do the expected. A plus is the sound track, which is composed of corny, wonderful pop songs from Italy." Jay Carr of
The Boston Globe called the film "messy, but cheerfully tangy and winning." However,
Michael Sragow of the
San Francisco Examiner said that it "fails to stretch a blase manner into a satirical point of view. Now and then, one of the performers breaks out of the movie's mode of low-key archness, like Anne De Salvo (who plays the don's wife), an indestructible comedian who can't help creating an outsize character even when only a caricature is called for. In
Spike of Bensonhurst, however, if the cast starts to rouse some energy, schmaltz and raucous humor, the director is sure to squelch it with a wilting piece of parody and then to put it all on cruise control. Morrissey doesn't just undercut the kind of movie he's razzing; he undercuts himself." The film received generally positive reviews in Canada, the only other market to see a theatrical release of the film.
Peter Goddard of
The Toronto Star called the film "funnier than
Married To The Mob, spunkier than
Rocky, [and] more happily off-the-wall than
Moonstruck", adding that it was " the sweetest satire of the season—one so funny you needn't always laugh at it." Marke Andrews of
The Vancouver Sun called the film "coarse, cheeky and funny." John Griffin of the Montreal
Gazette called the film "reactionary, racist, misogynist, derivative and dumb as dirt", but said he liked it "because it's alive; because it crackles with misguided energy; because the young actors physically will the story line back on track with performances that should take them off the welfare lines and into Hollywood immediately." In Australia, where the film was released under the title of
The Mafia Kid and went directly to video, Bill Halliwell of
The Age wrote that "even though the story set-ups are as predictable as the mob cliches, [it] turns out to be nonetheless enjoyable thanks to a quick, inventive script by director Paul Morrissey and co-writer Alan Browne." ==Awards and nominations==