Variety characterized the deal as a "byproduct of the [1998] lockout by NBA owners," as the work stoppage had temporarily put on hold Rodman's commitments to the league.

[4] In August of that year, it was announced Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group would finance the film now known as Simon Sez under the direction of Kevin Alyn Elders.

The website's consensus reads: "Simon Sez no matter how starved you are for something to watch, there has to be a better option than this dreadfully misguided action thriller.

Writing for The New York Times, Lawrence Van Gelder gave a scathing review of the movie, stating that "its plot seems as if it had been fished out of the wastebaskets of writers who have written scores of better examples of the genre dating at least as far back as Dr. No in 1962", though he did find Rodman "inescapably watchable".

[8] Entertainment Weekly gave the film a D− rating, calling it "a shoddy mess" and "a bargain-basement rip-off of Ronin," and adding that Rodman was "yesterday's threatening omni-sexual exhibitionist turned today’s overexposed cliché.