Big Trouble (2002 film)

Big Trouble is a 2002 American black comedy film based on the novel Big Trouble by Dave Barry. It was directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and featured a large cast including Tim Allen and Rene Russo with Dennis Farina, Zooey Deschanel, Sofia Vergara, in her film debut, and Jason Lee in supporting roles. Like much of Dave Barry's fiction, it follows a diverse group of people through a series of extremely strange and humorous situations against the backdrop of Miami. The film was a box-office bomb, and received mixed critical reception.

Plot

In a high school game of "Killer," in which a student must shoot another with a squirt gun, Matt Arnold has to "kill" classmate Jenny Herk, so he sneaks up on her at home. By coincidence, hitmen are also there to assassinate Jenny's step-father Arthur Herk who has embezzled money from his company Penultra Corp.

As the fake assassination attempt coincides with the real one, police officers Monica Romero and Walter Kramitz are called out to the resulting disturbance. During the chaos, Matt's friend Andrew calls Matt's father Eliot Arnold. Picking up Matt, Eliot immediately feels a mutual attraction for Jenny's mother Anna Herk. Matt and Jenny are attracted to each other too. Meanwhile, their housemaid Nina falls for Puggy, a young homeless man who lives in a tree on their property. She runs from the shootings and he saves her from the hitmen.

Realizing he is the intended victim, Arthur visits arms dealers to buy a rocket but is sold a suitcase nuclear bomb as the dealer is out of rockets and doesn't tell him what it is. Escaped convicts Snake and Eddie, previously kicked out of the bar for disorderly conduct, hold it up, kidnapping Arthur and bar employee Puggy and taking the suitcase, not knowing its contents.