Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote that it "fails because no meaningful conflict is established until late in the film", and that every character except Bergen's was "one-dimensional, a thin symbol to be placed wherever the box office dictates." Gary Arnold of "The Washington Post" called the film a "thoroughly equivocal mishmash" that "politicizes everyone and everything. This includes the love affair, which is thwarted by some of the worst dialogue I've ever listened to." Richard Combs of "The Monthly Film Bulletin" wrote, "Perfectly maintaining the balance between acute exasperation and a vivid intellectual energy, Elliott Gould manages to endow Harry with something of the air of a prophet returned from the wilderness, certain of his personal truth although by no means certain of achieving it, and not to be goaded into becoming the spokesman for a new generation of icon levellers."