Though all seem to agree that Broderick Crawford gives a stunning performance as Hoover, the film has been the subject of no little controversy. Variety panned it as "cheap, lurid sensationalism...." while it was well received at the London and Berlin film festivals, and by the British critics. The Guardian: "The film is generally cast in the same mould as Mervyn LeRoy's The FBI Story but in reality goes in the other direction. Where that well-made movie hero-worshipped, this one never stops needling....(It) is rather like a forties movie brought intelligently up to date..." Robin Wood: "...perhaps the most intelligent film about American politics ever to come out of Hollywood....As in (Larry Cohen's) It's Alive, the monster is the logical product of the capitalist system."