I noticed a long time ago that the folks who were responsible for "Monty Python's Flying Circus" were brilliantly funny together, but working separately their work was difficult to predict. Some was quite good--and some very bad. Frankly, the best stuff have been Terry Jones' documentaries. As for "Splitting Heirs", it's neither very good nor all that bad. So, if you do watch, just don't expect the 'ol Python magic.

Eric Idle plays a guy whose annoying co-worker (Rick Moranis) recently became a Duke--and a very wealthy one at that. Idle is jealous, but when he learns that he really is the rightful heir and there's nothing he can do to prove it, he's determined to do something about it. Soon, folks start dying and you assume Idle is responsible...or is he? While there are NEVER any laugh out loud moments and the humor is at times quite broad, the characters are engaging and the film is decent...if uninspired. Overall, there are worse ways to spend your time if you have nothing better to do...

The long line of Dukes of Bournemouth have all been idiots. The last one married American Lucinda (Duchess Lucinda). The hapless pair and their friends left their baby Thomas Henry Butterfly Rainbow Peace in a restaurant back in the 60s. Tommy Patel (Eric Idle) grew up in an East Indian family and works for the Bournemouths as a commodity trader. He is assigned to host outrageous Henry Bullock (Rick Moranis). Henry gets Tommy fired. When the Duke dies, Henry turns out to be the new Duke and hires back Tommy. Lucinda recognizes a similarity between Tommy and her late husband. As evidences mount, he investigates the truth behind the Duke's missing baby. He goes to lawyer Shadgrind (John Cleese) who suggests killing Henry is the only way to go. Tommy starts to having a conflicted relationship with Henry especially as he sleeps with Kitty (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and then she reveals that she's marrying Henry.

I don't understand Shadgrind's hints about the Duke. There should be an easy paternity test. That would be the first thing that comes to my mind. I don't understand the central concede of killing the Duke. It's a screwball black comedy without any laughs. It's a comedy of confusion. Both Rick Moranis and Eric Idle are nice comedians. I just didn't laugh once.

Rick Moranis and Eric Idle star as a couple of men who as kids got lost in the Sixties. Lost in the sense of misplaced and for one of them that means a title.

Coincidences are more readily accepted in comedies like Splitting Heirs and what are the chances that one of them after being lost as a baby by a titled lord and his American wife at a Sixties type love-in would be found and assume his title. Of course there is another claimant who looks like his claim is just as valid and he's actually British. That's what happens with Moranis and Idle and in fact Idle works for the noble family's brokerage business.

In addition Idle has working for him a bottom feeding solicitor in fellow Monty Python alumnus John Cleese who is having a great old time with the part and stealing every scene he's in. Catherine Zeta-Jones is the girl both are pursuing and Barbara Hershey who was definitely a Sixties child plays somebody's mother.

A little bit of Kind Hearts And Coronets with a dash of The Canterville Ghost is thrown in as a whole bunch of unfortunate accidents keep happening. Someone is helping a well known family curse along and I won't say who.

Idle, Moranis, and Cleese keep the laughs churning in Splitting Heirs whose moral seems to be mothers keep track of your children.