A young AI prodigy gets rejected from a world-renowned robotics lab and does what any rational teenager would do — steals a van and drive cross-country to Minnesota to track down the professor who turned him down.

Paulie, an intelligent parrot who actually talks, relates the story of his struggle to a Russian immigrant who works as a janitor at the research institute where he is housed and neglected. Paulie’s story begins many years earlier when he is given as a gift to a little girl who stutters. Eventually, he teaches the girl to speak correctly but is taken away by her father because he believes the girl cannot distinguish fantasy from reality because she believes the bird can talk. Paulie goes through a series of adventures with a pawn shop owner, an aging widow, a Mexican-American troubadour and a would be thief before being taken to the institute where he now lives

Charlie and his troublesome cousin Paulie decide to steal $150000 in order to back a “sure thing” race horse that Paulie has inside information on. The aftermath of the robbery gets them into serious trouble with the local Mafia boss and the corrupt New York City police department.