Roger Ebert compared the film to "Like Father, Like Son", also released in 1987, in that it was an "example of the newest Hollywood genre, the Generation Squeeze, in which plots artificially combine adult and teenage elements" in order to attract the latter to the movie theater while attracting enough of an adult audience for the success of the rental market. Ebert describes as "dumb" the main plot device involving the gangsters' continuing pursuit of Andrew, and the story arc about the janitor he befriends, and notes that the film fails to depict how the 29-year-old protagonist could have much in common with Gish's character, who is over 10 years younger than he is. He credited the film with getting him to wonder what it would be like to revisit one's high school years, but cites "Peggy Sue Got Married" from 1986 as a film that had portrayed that scenario much more successfully.