A stockbroker on the run from the mob decides to hide out from them by enrolling as a high-school student.
A very successful stockbroker is called to court to testify against a mob boss who was into some inside trading, and they hide him because of death threats. He gets caught in a gun battle and must flee. He ends up hiding out as a student in a high school and must adjust to how teenage life has changed. The bad guys find him and he fights them in the high-school gym.—John Julien <[email protected]>
In Boston, Massachusetts, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) takes 29-year-old stockbroker Andrew Morenski (Jon Cryer) into protective custody while awaiting the trial of local gangster, Victor Kapados. Andrew and several colleagues are key witnesses in a stock scam. After Andrew becomes restless, FBI agents take him to a diner for breakfast. However, a gangster gunman (Oliver Cotton) comes into the diner and opens fire, killing one FBI agent and injuring the other. Andrew is not harmed, but runs for his life, followed closely by the hit-man. Andrew eludes the killer and hitchhikes with a truck driver to Topsail Bay, Delaware, where he phones his Aunt Lucy (Gretchen Cryer), who tells him to meet her at the high school where she works.
Andrew shaves off his beard and dyes the sides of his hair blonde to give himself a punk look. He trades his $500 Italian sports coat for a black pea coat from a bum to complete the look. When he goes to Topsail High School to meet his Aunt Lucy, the office personnel mistake him for a new student and send him to register for classes. He tells the registrar he is "Maxwell Hauser" from Texas, taking the name from a can of Maxwell House coffee he spots in the office. Andrew's fifteen-year-old cousin, Patrick Morenski (Keith Coogan), Aunt Lucy's son, is enrolled in Andrew's first class. Patrick does not initially recognize him, but Andrew convinces him they are cousins.
After classes, Aunt Lucy also does not recognize Andrew and the cousins opt not to tell her who "Maxwell" really is, just saying he is Patrick's new friend. With Andrew's disappearance in all the newspapers, he decides the mobsters might contact Lucy looking for him, so it is best to keep her ignorant. However, Patrick does let Andrew stay in his bedroom in the attic, explaining that his mother never comes up there. That evening, as Andrew and Patrick leave a local diner, a birthday card addressed to his grandmother falls out of Andrew's coat pocket, but a waitress finds it and mails it for him.
The next day in history class, when the teacher tells the class that former U.S. President Richard Nixon was a good man who was set up as a fall guy by radicals in the Watergate scandal, Andrew challenges her ideas. The teacher sends him to the principal's office for disagreeing with her, but the other students are impressed by him in standing up to the teacher.
During lunch, two senior girls, Ryan Campbell (Annabeth Gish) and Chloe (Beth Ehlers), chat with Andrew and Patrick. Ryan hits it off with Andrew, but her boyfriend, Kevin O'Roarke (Tim Quill), a jock who is running for student body president, quickly comes to retrieve her.
After class, several African-American students approach Andrew, suggesting he run against Kevin for president and improvise a rap song for his campaign. However, Andrew declines to run (out of fear of the attention that his secret will be found out). Meanwhile, Patrick takes a driving lesson, but nearly wrecks the car.
A few days later, Andrew goes to Ryan's house to take her on a date. Her father, Bob Campbell, is initially gruff, but Andrew wins him over after spotting a $1,000 deduction he failed to take on his income tax form. Ryan and Andrew go to a roller skating rink. Andrew is not experienced and holds onto Ryan who helps teach him to skate. Afterwards, she kisses him on the cheek. Before he gets back to Aunt Lucy's house, Patrick finds Andrew, warning that the FBI is at the house looking for him. They came to Topsail Bay because Andrew used an automated bank teller (ATM) in the area. Patrick gives Andrew a copy of his mother's keys to the school, telling him to sleep there from now on.
Alone in the school at night, Andrew uses the PA system to make fake announcements and dances through the halls. This continues nightly for several weeks until the school custodian, Ezzard (Lou Walker), catches him. Ezzard has figured out who Andrew really is thanks to the mock announcements on the PA system. But rather than turn Andrew in, Ezzard shares some liquor with him and lets him sleep in the basement.
In the weeks that follow, Patrick gets his learner's driving permit and gains the confidence to ask a girl out on a date. Andrew and Ryan continue seeing each other, but she wants to go slow before having sex. Andrew also agrees to run for student body president against Kevin. Meanwhile, the newspapers report that a third witness in the Kapados trial has been murdered, leaving Andrew the only person who can testify against him.
At Grandma Jennie's house, a hit-man posing as an FBI agent questions her about Andrew's whereabouts. The hit-man notices the postmark from the birthday card Andrew sent her and heads for Topsail Bay.
On a date, Ryan questions why Andrew has never invited her to his house or given her his telephone number. Andrew confesses everything to Ryan, who is upset, but supportive. Afterward, Andrew goes to the diner where he tells Kevin he is dropping out of the election and giving Ryan back to him. The mob hit-man comes in and catches a quick glimpse of Andrew as he is leaving. Realizing this is a favorite hangout for high schoolers, the killer goes to the school, draws a beard on one of Andrew's campaign posters and knows he has found his target's hiding place.
The next day during an assembly, the principal announces Andrew the winner of the election. When Kevin demands a recount, a show of hands reveals Andrew the winner by an overwhelming majority. Meanwhile, the hit-man is in the rafters of the auditorium with a high-powered rifle aimed at Andrew. Ezzard spots the sniper and punches him, shots are fired and pandemonium breaks out. Kevin and Andrew climb into the rafters to fight the hit-man who ultimately falls to the floor, dead.
Andrew returns to Boston, where his testimony ensures that Kapados is sent to prison. After the trial, Andrew says goodbye to Patrick and the rest of his family and the FBI takes him away to give him a new identity to protect him from the wrath of Kapados mobsters.
One year later, Ryan is a student at the University of Iowa. While reading on campus one day, Andrew approaches her, explaining he is now going by the name "Eddie Collins" and working there at a RA (resident advisor). Ryan tells him she followed the trial and that she and Kevin broke up. The two kiss for the first time as the film ends.
