Trama

In Hong Kong, a mob boss serving as a high-rank official of a North Korea-sponsored terrorist organization instructs Peter Beaupre (Olek Krupa) to retrieve a highly-classified $10 million missile-cloaking microchip. Beaupre returns to the United States where he meets his associate spies Alice Ribbons (Rya Kihlstedt), Burton Jernigan (Lenny Von Dohlen), and Earl Unger (David Thornton). At a dock in Silicon Valley, the spies take the chip from their contact and hide it inside a TYCO remote-control car to sneak it past airport security, placing it inside a Parisian shopping bag.

However, while at San Francisco International Airport, extra security measures causes a luggage mix-up, wherein a Chicago-bound elderly woman named Mrs. Hess (Marian Seldes), who is carrying loaves of sourdough bread in an identical Parisian bag, inadvertently takes the spies' bag containing the car. With the spies noting that all shops, bars, and lounges were clean, Beaupre guesses correctly that whoever took the car immediately boarded a flight, which happened to be on a boarding process.

The four spies arrive in Chicago wherein upon disembarkation, they discover the car in possession of Mrs. Hess but fail to stop her. Jernigan manages to track down the taxi she boarded and questions the driver on her address. Meanwhile, 8-year-old Alex Pruitt (Alex D. Linz) is given the remote-control car by Hess for shoveling her driveway, but she lectures him for scratching in public. He returns home and discovers that he has chickenpox. Karen Pruitt (Haviland Morris), his mother discusses the matter on working weekends with her boss Charlie while his father Jack (Kevin Kilner) is invited to Cleveland for a business trip.

While staying home from school as his siblings Molly (Scarlett Johansson) and Stan (Seth Smith) attend classes, Alex spies on their neighborhood. Meanwhile, the four spies lease a house nearby and begin systematically searching every house in Hess's suburban neighborhood to find the chip. Karen works from home to take care of Alex but as she is called into work for a critical meeting that she cannot afford to miss, Alex resumes spying on the suburb but discovers the spies' operations. Twice Alex makes failed attempts at reporting them to the authorities as the spies hide or vacate the area so that the police don't find anything or anyone. The police give a stern warning to Alex not to waste their time again.

The next morning, Kate again has to go to work, and Alex decides to do something by himself. He figures that the burglars are looking for something special, as they are searching for each house systematically, but not stealing anything. He identifies the next house they are going to burgle.

Alex attaches a camera to the remote-control car and uses it to spy on them, leading to the spies chasing it when they spot it. Alex thinks he has the proof of the burglars but finds that Beaure has removed the recording cassette.

Wondering what they want with the toy car, Alex opens it and discovers the stolen chip. After getting the number printed on the back of the chip, he informs the local Air Force Recruitment Center about the chip while asking if they can forward the information about the chip to the right authorities. The information reaches FBI Agent Stuckey (Christopher Curry), who has been after Beaupre for seven years.

Meanwhile Beaupre is given 24 hours to produce the chip, or he and his team would be eliminated. Posing as the mother of Alex's schoolmate, Alice calls Karen and asks if Alex took a car from them. With Karen only stating that Alex possesses a similar car which was given to him by a neighbor, the spies finally realize that Alex has been watching them and decide to break into his house. Alex overhears the conversation and knows that its the burglars calling the confirm about the car. He knows no-one will believe him and he will have to defend this place when Karen goes out to work the following day.

With everyone asleep, Alex rigs the house with booby traps with help from his pet rat Doris and his brother's loud-mouthed parrot. The next day, Alice scopes the front door and Alex uses a dog whistle to excite Alice's dog, who drags her away. Mrs. Hess is requested by Karen to watch over Alex. However, as she heads to the Pruitts, Alice and Beaupre cross paths with her, claiming that a package due for delivery to their address was misdelivered to her house instead. Wi

Earl is electrocuted at the front entrance by a wiring, he thinks is fake but turns out to be real. Earl attacks the door but slips and falls on a mat which had ceramic roll balls underneath. Beaupre and Earl figure out a hanging weightlifting apparatus connected to a wire at the door, and cut the wire, only to unleash a bookcase which falls right onto them from the attic. Then Alex drops the weights. Earl tries to get in via a window to be confronted with a bag of plaster of Paris, which hits him smack in the face. Earl gets into but lands into 2 buckets of sticky glue.

Burton is electrocuted at the back when he sits on a metal chair, which was connected to a battery. Then, a hanging hook activates the water hose and drenches Burton (it's snowing). He gets into the basement and finds a pair of feet dangling (whom he assumes is Alex). When Burton pulls on it, he activates a lawn mower, which falls on him and mows his head. Burton gets into via the attic window but doesn't notice the removed floorboards and falls 3 stories down right onto the basement toilet.

Alice has to jump over a locked fence into the backyard and lands into glue and is hit by a falling pot. As Alice tries to walk, all her clothes get stuck in the glue and have to be taken off one by one. She tries to get in via the backyard door, but Alex had cut the handles of the small ladder, and she falls flat on her back. She somersaults over the ladder onto the back porch, only to find that the floorboards were unscrewed at the ends (hinged in the middle) and she falls below into a gap.

Beaupre gets into the front door by cutting it but activates a hidden lever that unleashes a boxer punch right into his gonads. Beaupre goes to help Alice, but again falls through the floorboards, on top of Alice. Earl can't get out of the buckets and walks with them. he tries to help Alice and Beaupre but ends up falling face first into the basement and accidentally shoots his gun which damages the sewer line and drops raw sewage on top of him.

Alex is distracted when Karen calls and Beaupre finds out that Alex has asked Karen not to return home and instead pick his brother and sister from school. Karen realizes the danger when the FBI agent reaches Alex's school and meets Karen and her 2 other kids there.

While the four pursue Alex around the house, he flees (Earl and Burton jump out of the attic window on the trampoline to pursue him, but the trampoline was cut, and they fall right into the icy pool. Alice tries to take the service elevator, but Alex had removed the bottom, and she falls right through) and rescues Hess, who has been duct taped to a chair in her garage by Alice. Beaupre ambushes Alex at Hess's garage, but the latter uses a bubble gun resembling a Glock to scare him off and rescue Hess.

Alex's family brings the agents and the police to their house, where they arrest Alice, Jernigan, and Unger. However, Beaupre flees to the snow fort in the backyard. The parrot drives the remote-control car into the snow fort and threatens to light fireworks, which are lined around the inside. Beaupre offers a cracker in exchange for silence, but the parrot demands two. Since Beaupre has only one, the parrot exposes his location by lighting the fireworks.

Later, as the Pruitt residence is being repaired, the Pruitts, Agent Stuckey, and Hess hold a celebratory dinner for Alex, with Jack returning home from a business trip. Alex is promised by the company that made the chip a huge monetary reward for his actions before Jack gifts him with a new toy car. The spies are shown to have contracted Alex's chickenpox during their mugshots.