The stars have done better comedy before."[14] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times was negative, writing that "for the most part, 'California Split' seems one very long and very loud actors workshop improv, done in card parlors and casinos instead of on a bare stage. The garbled, stomped-on, incomprehensible dialogue which was annoying in the early stages of 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller' here seems so self-indulgently and needlessly overdone as to give a whole new dimension to the splitting headache."[15] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "a slight but cheerful and beguiling episodic comedy."[16]