the film's message was the exact opposite of the one that the studio feared could be transmitted. Reception Release In early 1993, the film and its marketing campaign were given a week-long test run, playing at two or three theaters in several cities across the country, including: Rochester, New York and Tucson, Arizona, early test-screening audiences responded positively. However, at a screening in Las Vegas, Nevada, theater managers had called in the police to break up a fistfight between two couples, twenty minutes before the film was to start, according to Hackford, this incident caused the studio to rethink the marketing campaign for the film. The film was released nationally on thirty screens on April 30, 1993, but delayed in the Los Angeles markets until May 21, 1993, when the Rodney King civil rights trial verdict was to be handed down, the city feared a repeat of the 1992 riots following the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department officers charged with beating King. Box office The box-office sales totaled $1 million from 391 theaters on opening weekend. Distributors did not plan to expand the release further, as crossover appeal to non-Hispanic audiences was not apparent. Critical response The film received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 55% based on reviews from 11 critics, with an average rating of 5.48/10. On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 47 out of 100 based on reviews from 12 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times was critical of the film, called it "approximately three hours of violent, cartoonish posturing incongruously set in the realistically evoked milieu of East Los Angeles", while Mim Eichler, also of the Los Angeles Times, praised the film, calling it "A riveting odyssey, rich with myth and unforgettable imagery. It is a feast of sight and sound--poetry, music, dance and emotion--and possibly one of the most powerful and important films of the decade". The TV Guide review stated "similarity to Edward James Olmos' American Me, in which a tormented drug dealer travels the same route through prison society as Miklo. The principal difference between the two films is that Bound By Honor is by far the glossier effort, relentlessly picturesque in the seamlessly anesthetized manner of mainstream Hollywood films." Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum for the Chicago Reader wrote that this "ugly three-hour snoozefest