Trama

Luke Wilson plays a good-hearted ex-con who gets a job in a retirement hotel. Three elderly residents help him win back his girlfriend as he lends them a hand in fighting hotel corruption.

Near the Texas-Mexico border, Wendell Baker has a few things going for him: his genial nature and optimism and the love of Doreen. His troubles? He dances around telling her that he loves her, and his idea of work is illegal. He's arrested, imprisoned, and she puts him behind her when she realizes that even prison is just a good excuse for him to play football with the guys. When he is paroled, it's to a job in the "hotel industry" at a board and care home for seniors, where the head nurse is running a scam. Three of the residents respond to Wendell's good heart. Can they expose the scam and help Wendell win back Doreen?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Wendell Baker (Luke WILSON), a good-hearted but misdirected young man, has built up a successful albeit illegal fake-ID business for undocumented immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border. Caught by an undercover police officer, he is sent to jail.

At first, his girlfriend Doreen (Eva MENDES) visits regularly, but as he'd never expressed his feelings to her, she doubts that he loves her back. After a visit, one that he cuts short to return playing a match, seeing him too well-adjusted in jail, she decides to move on. He realizes when she stops visiting and returns his letters.

Wendell's friend and former partner in making the IDs, Reyes (Jacob VARGAS), picks him up when released, but after dinner he tells him his partner won't let him stay friends with him anymore. The next day, before Wendell's arrival at his appointed job in a retirement home Neil (Owen WILSON), the home's head nurse, talks about how easily he'll be able to use the unknowing newcomer as a scapegoat.

In a local supermarket buying supplies for the home, Wendell spots a photo of Doreen with the clerk, so he hangs around until she comes in. The clerk, Dave (Will FERRELL), catches him watching her, punches and then threatens him to keep his distance. As Wendell is leaving Doreen catches up with him, insists she has moved on and suggests he does the same.

Back at the home, Neil reiterates to the orderly that Wendell would be ideal to frame if necessary as he's clueless. Wendell, in the meantime, becomes close to some of the residents as they see he is sincere and caring.

One evening, Neil takes Wendell aside and tells him about a scam he runs on the residents. Little by little, he ships off residents to somewhere in Oklahoma, illegally selling their medications and taking a part of their medicare checks. Neil tries to blackmail him into silence.

Instead, the next day Wendell wakes with a new sense of purpose. He visits Reyes, saying they will soon be back in business. He then returns to the home, enlisting three residents, Skip (Harry Dean STANTON), Boyd (Seymour CASSELL) and Nasher (Kris KRISTOFFERSON), to get those who'd disappeared to Oklahoma back. Nasher flies them there and back and decides to stay on the road.

Wendell helps the remaining residents to fight the corrupt staff by getting them in trouble. Skip and Boyd get two teenage girls they had befriended to help get Neil and his right-hand-man arrested for attempted statutory rape.

A short time later, two representatives of Nasher, who turns out to be a reclusive oil tycoon, come seeking Wendell as he wants him to manage several of his luxury hotels. One day Skip coaxes Wendell down to the waterfront, where Boyd is bringing Doreen to him by boat. He races to her with their dog and enfolds her in an embrace.