Larry Wilson (Andrew McCarthy) and Richard Parker (Jonathan Silverman) are two low-level financial employees at an insurance corporation in New York City. While going over actuarial reports, Richard discovers a series of payments made for the same death. Richard and Larry take their findings to the CEO, Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser), who commends them for discovering insurance fraud and invites them to his Hamptons island beach house for the Labor Day weekend. Unbeknownst to Larry and Richard, Bernie is behind the fraud. Nervously meeting with his American Mafia partner Vito (Louis Giambalvo), Bernie asks to have Larry and Richard killed. However, after Bernie leaves, Vito decides Bernie has been attracting too much attention with his greed and his relationship with Vito's girlfriend, Tina (Catherine Parks), and orders that he be killed instead.
Larry Wilson (Andrew McCarthy) and Richard Parker (Jonathan Silverman) are at a Manhattan morgue where they see their deceased CEO Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser). Larry falsely claims Bernie as his uncle, so he can get some of Bernie's possessions including Bernie's credit card. At the insurance company, Larry and Richard are quizzed by their boss and Arthur Hummel (Barry Bostwick), the company's internal investigator, who ask the two if they have the that Bernie embezzled. They deny knowing where the money is, but their boss believes they're lying and fires them. He also sends Hummel after them, giving him two weeks to prove their guilt.