Plot
The story begins on "the strangest day" of Larry Burrows (James Belushi) life consisting of a series of comic and dramatic misadventures. Larry, who blames all of his life's problems on the fact that he struck out during a key moment of a high school baseball game, wishes he had done things differently. His wish is granted by a guardian angel-like figure named Mike (Michael Caine), and appears at various times as a bartender, a cab driver, and so on. Larry soon discovers that Mike has transferred Larry into an alternate reality in which he had won the pivotal high school game. He now finds himself rich and (within his company) powerful, and married to the boss's (Bill McCutcheon) sexy daughter Cindy Jo Bumpers (Rene Russo). At first, his new life seems perfect, but he soon begins to miss his best friend Clip Metzger (Jon Lovitz) and wife Ellen (Linda Hamilton) from his previous life; he also discovers that his alternate self has created many enemies, like Jewel Jagger (Courteney Cox), and as Larry's problems multiply, he finds himself wishing to be put back into his old life.
The story begins with Larry's car, an old Ford LTD station wagon, stalled out in a dark alley. Suddenly the pink lights of the "Universal Joint," a bar, come on. Larry goes inside to call a tow truck, and tells bartender Mike his troubles. He reviews the day he just had, which ended with his getting fired after discovering his boss' (Niles Pender's)scheme to sell the company under the nose of its owners to a group of naive Japanese investors. He tells Mike that he wishes he'd hit that last pitch out of the park, after which Mike fixes him a drink called "Spilled Milk."
Larry leaves the bar, walks home and discovers someone else living his his house, which is now fixed up (previously his yard and driveway were muddy and unfinished). Mike appears as a cab driver and drives him to his "new" home, a mansion in Forest Hills, explaining that he did in fact hit the last pitch and won the game. He soon discovers that Cindy Jo is his wife and he's the president of his company, Liberty Republic Sporting Goods. Being a classic car buff, he's shocked to find that he owns a collection of priceless antique automobiles.
He soon discovers that Clip has a low-level job in the accounting department, and Ellen is shop steward (in both realities). Jewel Jagger is now Larry's mistress. Ellen hates Larry and he discovers that the union is threatening a walkout due to massive layoffs and increased production, since Niles Pender is selling the company in both realities. Seeing Ellen, he realizes how much he misses her and agrees to all the union's demands, providing Ellen agrees to dinner at his favorite restaurant. She reluctantly agrees, and Larry eventually convinces her that they were married in a previous life.
Pender, after discovering that Larry has agreed to union demands, takes revenge on Larry, by telling both Cindy Jo and Jewel, of Larry's dinner date with Ellen. He then plots to kill Larry at the office that night. However, Leo Hansen, Liberty Republic's owner, comes to Larry's office to leave him a note that he is fired for cheating on Cindy Jo, and Pender, thinking it's Larry, kills him. He then calls the police, who attempt to arrest Larry for Leo's murder. Larry escapes while jealous Jewel creates pandimonium outside in her attempts to shoot him (and shoots out a number of police cars in the process), a police chase ensues, and Larry is eventually cornered in a dark alley. As he's about to turn himself in, the pink glow of the "Universal Joint" comes on, and Larry runs into the empty bar, attempting to remake the "Spilled Milk" drink that Mike made before.
The flashing lights of the police cars become those of a tow truck, Mike's back behind the bar, and Larry realizes he's back in his old life. He suddenly realizes that tonight the owners of Liberty Republic are to sign the deal with the Japanese investors, rushes to the company headquarters with Duncan in the tow truck, and exposes Pender's scheme just as Leo is about to sign the deal.
Jackie Earl (Sanders), company president and Cindy Jo's husband, offers Pender's job to Larry, plus a company car, a new Mercedes. Larry accepts the offer and the film ends happily with Larry's 35th birthday party at his home, glad to be back with Ellen, and in his house, which still has the muddy driveway and lawn.
Read more about this topic: Mr. Destiny
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“The plot! The plot! What kind of plot could a poet possibly provide that is not surpassed by the thinking, feeling reader? Form alone is divine.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)