Film critic Pauline Kael felt the film exaggerated the social impact of GM's closing of the plant and depicted the actual events of Flint's troubles out of chronological order. Kael called the film "shallow and facetious, a piece of gonzo demagoguery that made me feel cheap for laughing". One such criticism is that the eviction at the end of the film occurred on a different day from Smith's speech, but the two events were intercut for emotional effect. Moore addresses this criticism in the DVD commentary, stating that "there are no dates in the film; we'll be going back and forth throughout the decade of the '80s". Siskel & Ebert both put the film of their list of The 10 Best Films of 1989.