A gangster running a protection racket gets information that he's about to be prosecuted on income-tax-evasion charges. He hires a man with a photographic memory to memorize his books, then destroys them all so the police won't have any evidence to link him to the racket.
When a self-destructive teenager is suspended from school and asked to look after his feisty alcoholic grandmother as a punishment, the crazy time they spend together turns his life around.
Leo and Angela Russo live a simple life in Queens, surrounded by their overbearing Italian-American family. When their son finds success on his high school basketball team, Leo tears the family apart trying to make it happen.