Hap Collins, chicken plant guard, saves a young woman's life, and her father, owner of the chicken plant, rewards him with a large cash bonus. Hap and his best friend, Leonard Pine, head for a cruise to Mexico and the Caribbean. Not matching up to the exacting dress code of the on-board lobster restaurant, Leonard soon causes the pair to be abandoned in Mexico.

There they are saved from knife-wielding policemen by a geriatric fisherman and his daughter, Beatrice. But try as he might, Hap can't seem to stay out of other people's business. Beatrice's past returns to haunt her in the shape of a Mexican mobster and threatens to drag Hap, and all those closest to him, into further violence.