Young upper management executive Donald (Williams) gets canned as part of a restructuring. With his mind occupied by that he quite accidentally leaves a sizable gasoline spill outside a petrol station/auto shop just before its crotchety old proprietor Sonny (Mathau) tosses a stale cancer stick. After that Sonny no longer owns a petrol station/auto shop. Neither man really sees the other or knows what really happened.
These suddenly desperate sad-sacks converge on the local unemployment office whilst Jack (Reed) - one other more desperate yet decidedly more volatile individual is also there. At a nearby diner, while Donald and Sonny are sulking after a miserable day at the mercy of the federal bureaucracy, Jack shows up with a loaded gun and tries to rob the place. Jack has been pushed too far which results in his pushing Donald and Sonny too far. They foil the robbery but Donald is shot. Jack easily orchestrates his getaway.
Becoming cause celebres for their daring good deed in the incident doesn't help Donald or Sonny. The media ridicules them. Worse, Jack gets their names from the news reports and goes hunting after them as Sonny struggles through odd jobs and Donald alienates his fiancé by going to live at a survivalist camp. Tracking Donald to the camp by threatening Sonny, Jack is determined to finally silence both of the odd couple friends. Donald - exhilarated by the whole experience craves a final confrontation.
The film starts quite well to hook the viewer but most of the truly funny material is to be found at the beginning. By the middle it lags and lingers as gaping plot holes remain. The final thirty minutes are mostly unwatchable in the run-up to a nonsensical conclusion. They appeared to be looking for absolutely anything with which they could fashion a satisfactory conclusion for the final cut.
