Michael Felgate (Hugh Grant), an Englishman who runs an auction house in New York, is head-over-heels in love for the first time in his life. After only three months of dating his beautiful girlfriend Gina (Jeanne Tripplehorn), Michael gathers up his courage and proposes marriage. But, to Michael’s shock, Gina declares that, though she loves Michael very much, she can never marry him. As Michael pursues Gina and approaches her father to ask for his blessing — Gina refuses to have another of her boyfriends become corrupted and embroiled in her family’s gangster life.

So, to win the hand of the woman he loves, Michael bravely embarks on a mission to thwart the intentions of The Mob. Soon, however, thanks to Gina’s charming father, Michael finds himself inadvertently laundering money through his auction house, becoming an accessory to murder, and having to pass himself off as the notorious “Mickey Blue Eyes.”