 Sacco and Vanzetti are beyond being helped by any film, for that matter, and the purpose of this film, ... is more to alert us to how law can be used as a blunt instrument of politics [than other contemporary films of the day]'.Despite his friends' criticism that the film is 'just another left-wing, European blast at the United States', Vincent Canby, in a review for "The New York Times", praises the film, if for nothing more than calling 'to our attention a terrible chapter in American history'.Canby, however, dismisses the film as a simplication that 'takes the form of not particularly stylish political cartooning.