Marlon Brando triumphs as Carmine Sabatini, a powerful New York importer. Matthew Broderick co-stars as Clark Kellogg, a naive film student who accepts a job working for Sabatini. As if trapped in a comic nightmare, Clark finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into an ingenious scam involving an endangered Komodo Dragon, Sabatini's daughter, Bert Parks and a group of very hungry eccentrics. But when the FBI asks Clark to snitch on his colourful employer, he discovers a strange loyalty to this fatherly figure.