Almost two decades later, a review in "The Digital Fix" called the film "A sun-bleached study in corruption and soul-destroying brutality, this film by the notoriously erratic but sometimes brilliant William Friedkin is nasty, cynical and incredibly good." The film was voted as the 19th best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years by a group of "Los Angeles Times" writers and editors with two criteria: "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list".