the initial release of "prince of the city" garnered both positive and negative reviews, some of the latter complaining of what was considered its excessive length, or comparing treat williams' performance unfavorably with that of al pacino in "serpico", lumet's previous film about police corruption. , "prince of the city" holds a 91% approval rating on the review aggregator rotten tomatoes, based on 23 reviews with an average rating of 7.4/10.