 The film has an 82% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, out of 11 reviews.Roger Ebert praised the film for taking chances by exploring the idea of a hard-nosed cop learning to respect a woman.He cites the film as "a lot more ambitious than the Dirty Harry (film series) Ebert's colleague Gene Siskel also praised the film during their on-air review of the film on At the Movies, crediting the performance of the villain, the relationship between Eastwood and Geneviève Bujold, and Eastwood doing "a terrific job risking his star charisma playing a louse" and also "taking us inside to see what it's really like to abuse women".