Before Tim Burstall started on Eliza Fraser he thought Hexagon Productions should make a male bonding film, and considered Rusty Bugles, The Odd Angry Shot and Last of the Knucklemen.

[4]John Lapsley of the Sun-Herald gave the film 4 stars concludes "It is a very strong script nicely adapted by Burstall.

Apart from being a very good movie, it is also a very funny one, with a wide enough four-letter vocabulary to make the odd backward schoolgirl blush.

"[7] Martha DuBose wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald "In spite of the cleverly crafted rough-edged look of the film and its peppery language, The Last of the Knucklemen is a wistful little romance on a dying breed of men.

"[8] The Adelaide Advertiser's Terry Jennings commented on the films poor distribution and said of the film "Burstall has taken a modest subject and made a modest success - a well-crafted, well-acted, always entertaining adaptation of John Powers's boisterous if simple and machismo stage play.

"[10] Writing in Cinema Papers Keith Connolly concludes "In sum, Knucklemen is disappointing, not for any marked defect of rendition, but rather because Burstall (who, of course, knows precisely what he is doing) keeps his sights so low.

The DVD is compatible with region codes 2 and 4 and includes special features such as the trailer, photo gallery and interviews with John Powers, Gerard Kennedy, Dan Burstall, Steve Bisley and Michael Caton.