AGENT DARREN FLEECE is a middle-aged U. S. Treasury Agent who has been relegated to training new recruits; a role he does not enjoy and considers an embarrassing demotion. He is assigned a bright and beautiful protégé, AGENT PENNY FOX, who although new to the agency, is confident and eager to prove she is a capable and competent agent. They are on their way to Cabo San Lucas to check out intel that indicates a fugitive Russian oligarch, MAXIM, may be there. A concern because the Presidents of the United States and Mexico are planning a summit meeting there. The two agents bicker back and forth as each one tries to outdo the other.
Jack Fathom is a middle-aged and frustrated engineer at a major aerospace company. He feels his work is unappreciated and obsesses over catching a terrorist someday. His wife, NANCY, wonders why she ever married an engineer and has no appreciation for his “humor”. They are nonetheless bound together by their love of their two children; KRISTEN is a perky college freshman and MICHAEL a feisty preteen. The kids also have no appreciation for their father and are easily embarrassed by his attention to accuracy and lack of political correctness.
Coincidently, workaholic Jack has begrudgingly agreed at Nancy’s insistence on a long overdue vacation with his family. On their arrival at the Cabo San Lucas airport, Jack’s cheapskate tendencies become obvious when he has a run-in with a local taxi driver, PACO, and his neurotic Chihuahua, PONCHO, resulting in an embarrassing start to their trip. The agents’ arrival at the airport is also quite awkward as Fleece’s lack of attention to details is exposed, perhaps the reason he is now training new recruits.
Jack tries to enjoy his vacation but is frustrated by a polygraph test he took just before leaving on vacation. The test is required for his top secret job and he can’t figure out why they were so tough on him this time. Acting undercover as a couple on vacation, the agents meet the Fathom family casually at the hotel pool bar tended by the colorful and gregarious local, HENRI. Henri’s idea of fun is challenging new guests to a “put the cherry in the glass” puzzle, a challenge that keeps all but a few special guests befuddled.
Fleece and Fox continue to bicker at one another as Fleece tries to enjoy this “vacation” of an assignment while Fox is anxious for a real assignment. Enjoying a beer while watching Jack and family sun themselves at the pool, Fleece gets a call from a Secret Service colleague, AGENT BURKE. He is calling from a crime scene at a self storage facility in the States. There is evidence that some type of nuclear weapons were previously stored at the sight. Agent Burke thinks that MAXIM, was involved. The agents are no longer on “vacation”.
Jack finally begins to relax and enjoy his time in Cabo until he and his family go to lunch in town. They end up sitting next to three Russian speaking men. Overhearing their conversation, Jack thinks he understands some of the words from his self taught language lessons like “bomb”, “martyrs”, etc. Jack decides to confront them in the restaurant in a staged accidental meeting. Fleece and Fox who have also gone to the restaurant at Henri’s suggestion are astounded by the scene that ensues. They recognize one of the men to Maxim After the incident, the Russian men leave the restaurant in a huff. Jack follows them and leaves Nancy and the kids shocked and dismayed by Jack’s behavior and the sudden turn of events. Fleece follows Jack while insisting, much to Fox’s frustration, that the “rookie” stay and keep an eye on the wife and kids.
Jack runs out of the restaurant in time to see the Russian men hop into a taxi and leave. Unfortunately for Jack the taxi he hails is Paco’s. After convincing Paco to accept his pleas to follow the other taxi, a wild and harrowing taxi chase ensues through the city streets, followed closely by another taxi with Agent Fleece. The Russian men get away. A shaken Fleece returns to the restaurant in his badly damaged taxi to get Fox and finds that she and the family have had a successful shoe shopping excursion.
Back at the hotel, Jack uses the business center to confirm the identity of the Russian men. At last, Jack has the opportunity he has longed for, a chance to come face to face with terrorists and bring them to justice. Fleece and Fox get the same confirmation but argue whether there really is a terrorist plot against the President and that Jack is connected. Fox is anxious to solve the case but is astounded to learn that Fleece has a propensity for naps and decides that it’s been a long day.
Jack’s office mate back at work is RUSTY SLY who plays a key support role in the story. Rusty is an unusual engineer by the fact that he is curiously swab and debonair and always meticulously dressed. On the other hand, Jack’s nemesis at work is BWANA, the corporation’s head of security. Bwana is always on the guard for the next security violation and overzealously watches Jack, waiting for him to make a mistake.
Jack calls Rusty back at work to see if he can help, but there is something amiss; Bwana and some “Men in Black” are taking everything that is Jack’s out of the office. Rusty tries to play it cool, not a stretch for him, and helps Jack as much as he can under the cold scrutiny of Bwana.
The action heats up back in Cabo when Jack takes a wild ride on a jet ski to check out some suspicious boats off the coast. He is followed closely by Fleece, and both are sprayed with gun fire and narrowly escape. They return to find that both Jack’s family and Fox have been kidnapped. Their hotel rooms are badly ransacked and splattered with stains of blood.
A bond begins to form between Fleece and Jack as both have their “significant other’s” lives at risk and are equally confused reconciling why the Secret Service has assigned agents to follow an engineer on vacation. They suspect their significant others have been taken to an abandoned resort next door and rush to their rescue. They are met with a hail of gunfire and are immediately captured by Maxim and his cohort in terror Yuri and thrown bound into a ballroom with the others. Agent Fleece is enraged, and embarrassed, to find out the rookie in his charge has been shot and badly injured.
Just as things seem to be as bad as they can get, Jack discovers that a nuclear bomb is literally hanging above their heads. Agent Fleece puts the pieces of the terrorists’ plot together; Maxim is planning an assassination of the President by detonating the nuclear bomb as his motorcade drives by the hotel. This is where Jack the engineer becomes the unlikely hero as he starts to calculate what it would take to safely and prematurely drop the bomb in time to save the President. Fox recognizes the ingeniousness of the plan, but Nancy is critically suspicious of the nerdy response and tells Jack in so many words. Undaunted, he assigns a task for everyone in the room and safely and literally drops the bomb in his lap just as gunfire erupts outside the locked door of the ballroom. They hold their breath as the door bursts open, revealing Henri the bartender, gun in hand, wondering why everyone is in their underwear (part of Jack’s unique way of keeping the bomb from detonating). Henri, it turns out, is also a Secret agent. Suddenly a terrorist appears at the door, and a brief gun battle ensues with Henri getting shot and Fox killing the terrorist. Everyone seems to be a hero so far except Fleece.
In the meantime, Maxim and Yuri are getting away. Fleece, fearing they have a second nuclear bomb, employs Jack to help him pursue the terrorists. It doesn’t take much to convince Jack to start the chase, but to their dismay, the first mode of transportation they try to commandeer is Paco’s taxi.
By this time, Agent Burke has landed at a nearby airport with the President’s advance team supported by an arsenal of unpiloted drones. Burke uses these high tech tools to help Fleece and Jack navigate their way in Paco’s taxi through the maze of Mexican traffic jams as they pursue Maxim’s speeding truck. After a wild chase, gun battle, fist fight and foot race, Maxim is captured by Jack, but Yuri escapes.
Everyone is back at the pool, nursing their wounds and in Agent Fleece’s case, ego. He learns who his next new trainee is as a young, bikini clad beauty swims up and immediately solves Henri’s Cherry Glass riddle – the agent’s secret test.
Jack has just made a cool $5 million from the reward money for capturing Maxim. He finally agrees with Nancy that it is time to take a real vacation and plans to get as far away as possible – to Tasmania.
Months later, Jack and Nancy are sunning themselves on the deck of the Brisbane-to-Hobart ferry appropriately named “The Sea Quell”. Relaxed and far away from all of his troubles, Jack unexpectedly finds himself face to face with Yuri. Nancy and the kids are dumbfounded as Jack confronts Yuri and pandemonium erupts. In the resulting chaos Jack gets arrested for nearly burning and sinking the ferry while Yuri escapes. Jack calls the only person who might be able to help, Agent Fleece, who unsuspectingly asks, “How’s the vacation going?”
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