It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Interesting movie. It is an English Comedy and seems to be John Cleese first appearance for the credits say "introducing John Cleese" yet the movie seems to have been made after the Monty Python movies. Whatever the reason it is not really important.Splitting Heirs is really nothing more than a stereotype comedy movie. At the start two people meet and in an unfortunate accident, then a duke dies. What ends up happening is that one of the two people is the legal heir and he becomes duke. In reality, the other person really is the duke because the babies were switched at birth (which is sort of covered in the movie). As such, one guy starts running around trying to kill the other, but when he believes he has killed him, he really hits a guilt trip. That is where the twist starts.The comedy of this movie is very much a comedy of errors. It deals with someone trying to kill somebody else and always missing his target. It is this that takes the major part of the movie. There is also a bit of slapstick, a bit of sexual humour, a bit of linguistic humour which includes funny names, and just unusual twists that have a comic revelation. Being a British movie with two actors from Monty Python (Eric Idle and John Cleese) there is also a poke at the French.John Cleese, now he is cool. He plays a lawyer, in fact he plays quite a mad lawyer. In the law firm his office is in the basement which means he's pretty bad (and pretty cheap). He sees an opportunity and he takes it. He decides that he wants to become the duke's lawyer but the real duke wants nothing of it. Unfortunately, Cleese is just too stupid to realise this.Splitting Heirs is okay but not fantastic. I didn't find it that funny, except for the beginning; that to me is a sign of a not too good comedy movie. The comedy is based entirely on trying to kill the false duke and this gets dull after awhile. The sexual innuendos are non existent, namely because they are just more blatant. I don't find a mother trying to sleep with her son even though she doesn't know at all funny. John Cleese is good and if you like slapstick, then okay, but honestly, you could probably waste your time better elsewhere.

Tommy (Eric Idle) lives in London with his Hindi family. Although he really doesn't look Indian, he has never questioned his heritage. As some sort of official in the British embassy, Tommy's boss tells him he must greet the newest Duke in the area. That would be American Henry (Rick Moranis), a rude, obnoxious sort. As an newborn, Henry went missing for three days of his early life, when his parents left him at a bar, and was later found in a telephone booth. Hank went to live in America with his mother (Barbara Hershey) when the original Duke died. Now, he's back and Tommy is gritting his teeth. But, wait. As Tommy hangs out at the mansion, he soon discovers that HE, Tommy, looks like a lot of the family's deceased relatives, hanging in portraits, among other things. Confronting his Hindi parents, Tommy is stunned to learn that someone PAID them to adopt him, as a baby, and they have a monogrammed blanket and silver rattle that came, too. Ho ho ho, could Henry and Tommy have been switched as babies, when the infant Duke was abandoned? Maybe! So, since Henry's so insufferable, what if Tommy knocks him off and reclaims his own title? This is a funny film that should take anyone's mind off the proverbial troubles. Idle, who wrote the script, is especially mirthful and the rest of the cast, including Moranis, Hershey, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and John Cleese, is great, too. The English sets are nice, especially the Duke's castle, and the costumes, camera work and direction contribute to the film's overall success. No, its no Shakespeare, but it doesn't pretend to be so, either. If you need a quick picker-upper, funny flick style, this is one to secure.

I rented this movie on VHS in the late 90's and somehow I never quite got to returning it to the store. Lacking the absurd humor of the Monty Python era, as a huge Idle and Cleese fan I was at first a bit disappointed. Eric Idle had produced what seemed at first a rather shallow comedy flick. Still, it had it's moments and at the end of the first viewing it left me satisfied, yet no more than that.In the following days however, I found myself watching this movie over and over again, getting to love it more and more each time. The brilliance in this movie is not in the script (a rather basic story about a personality mix-up) nor the usual Python-esquire absurdity (almost completely missing, except for the notion of an American as a British Duke) but rather in the main characters themselves. The American educated Duke-to-be, the Duchess Mummy who is so much of a man-eater it defies each sign of royalty, the gold-digging yet promiscuous fiancée, the scheming cook and the mad lawyer. Not to mention the blond haired, blue eyed Asian. Each of them has a sort of second layer to their personality which is so absurd, yet intriguing, that simply playing their characters is enough for the actors to make this a memorable appearance.Rick Moranis especially surprised me, if only by not being his obnoxious self.Nowadays, whenever I switch on my old VCR i get to wonder which tape will be in it, Splitting Heirs or Jackie Brown. Either way, the next time it will be the other way around.

Well, this movie wasn't the worst I've ever seen...but it was far from the best. It was mildly amusing at times, and although the talent they collected for this film was great, the writing fell flat. Keep an eye out for some great Python-esque jokes, and Barbara Hershey is surprisingly convincing as a sex-crazed duchess, but the one real thing to keep an eye out for is the Hindu Dream Sequence. If you've ever seen the old Indian (Bollywood) version of the Mahabharata, be prepared to laugh your head off. The depiction brought back everything I thought as a kid when I first saw that movie. There were a few other jokes in there that only the British or South Asians would get, but if you're not in either of those categories (or not sufficiently familiar with either) these jokes will be lost on you. Rent this only if you're an insomniac or a die-hard fan of cheesy humour.