After a six-week training course in private investigation, former security guard Vic Nardozza thinks he's ready to be a full-fledged detective. With his unconventional and unnerving approach, Vic checks out corporate tycoon Charles Woodland, suspected of using drugs. When Vic gets sidetracked in pursuit of his favorite candy bar, new agent Stacey Devers tries to keep things running smoothly. Fellow sleuth Kevin Blakeley, a recovering Peeping Tom, knows his weakness will be tested when he is assigned to expose an insurance scam on a tropical island where a beauty contest will also be held.

When a client suspects his fiance is cheating on him, he hires bumbling novice detective Vic Nardozza to investigate. But Mitch, the handsome man Vic normally uses to bait women, refuses the case. Vic decides he's sexy enough to handle the assignment himself and works out vigorously at the gym to help entice his target. However, his weakened condition only allows his date to seduce him. When Vic gives his client the bad news, carefully omitting his own participation, the enraged man mistakenly attacks Mitch, believing him to be the lover. Later, when Mitch discovers Vic's indiscretion, he retaliates by pushing Vic out of a window. Meanwhile, voyeuristic fellow sleuth Kevin Blakeley believes that Jack's irritability is a sign that the crusty veteran detective is on the verge of a stroke.

Vic accidentally joins a self-help class that launches him on a quest to simplify his cluttered life--a theory he applies to his current case of industrial espionage. But Vic's enthusiasm to reduce his client's files to a stack of note cards merely enables a helpful file clerk to steal the company's valuable software secrets. Vic pursues and captures the clerk, who surrenders himself to the simplicity of prison life. Meanwhile, depressed after conducting a failed seminar on investigations, Brady loses the company payroll at the racetrack. He then assigns each of his detectives to a horse, announcing that the losing horse will determine which of the employees will be terminated. When Kevin's horse comes in last, he seeks revenge and discovers that the race was rigged. Brady hears the outcome and restores Kevin's job at the agency.

An attractive attorney hires Vic to investigate job discrimination at a local diner. But when Vic enlists Kevin to pose as the applicant, the young detective, feeling unappreciated at work, accepts a job offer and promptly quits McKay Investigative Service. Stacey poses as a lesbian to solve the discrimination case, while Vic tries to return Kevin to the agency in time to join the beautiful lawyer on her planned exotic vacation.

Outraged when his credit card number and identity are stolen, Vic goes undercover as a mailman in order to find the culprit. When he discovers that the impostor is actually a decent guy who has merely borrowed his identification, Vic finds a way to make the situation work for both of them. Meanwhile, Stacey poses as a forklift operator to investigate employee theft at an electronics store but her new manager is a former high school classmate (who could jeopardize her cover. And Kevin encounters a rabidly racist dog owned by Brady's ex-wife.