For years, Dave Purcell (Hurt) has been running The Auk, a haute cuisine restaurant on a tiny Newfoundland inlet, and is ready to call it quits on his marriage and his business. All
seems lost until Dave's neighbour, Alphonse Murphy (A. Jones), proposes a mad yet ingenious scheme
to save The Auk. Alphonse convinces Dave to fabricate a sighting of a rare bird in the vicinity
of the restaurant. The plan is a success and the restaurant is soon crawling with well-heeled
gastronomes, vain celebrities and bellicose politicos.
Meanwhile, Alphonse has an agenda of his own, including the salvage of some cocaine
and the secret manufacture of a "recreational submarine vehicle", the revelation of
which threatens to expose Dave's bird hoax.