After the president of the United States dies in office, the country's favorite First Lady, Tess Carlisle (Shirley MacLaine), retires to her sleepy Ohio hometown, where one of the few constants in her life is Secret Service agent Doug Chesnic (Nicolas Cage). An ambitious, dedicated agent who served in the Carlisle White House, Doug now heads the seven-man Secret Service detail guarding Tess. Although Doug yearns to be in the thick of action and danger, he instead finds himself stuck in a small Midwestern town where Tess keeps him on the run, if only to bring her breakfast in bed. Nothing in the agency's training manual prepared Doug for this kind of duty, and he finally rebels, triggering a comic battle of wills with the very person he's sworn to protect.