On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 82% approval rating based on 71 reviews, with an average rating of 7.54/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Director Brian De Palma and star Al Pacino take it to the limit in this stylized, ultra-violent and eminently quotable gangster epic that walks a thin white line between moral drama and celebratory excess." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 65 out of 100 based on reviews from 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".