Charlie Hinton (Gooding, Jr.) and Phil Ryerson (Paul Rae) decide to run a summer day camp. Having completely no knowledge of the great outdoors and of managing a children's camp, he soon finds it to be a lot more difficult than anticipated. Charlie is up against threats of foreclosure from a neighboring camp and a declining enrollment due to the quality of the camp. The kids begin to rebel from lack of authority. Charlie is impelled to call his distant father, Col Buck Hinton (Richard Gant), to help save the camp and bring things back to order. Once he arrives the father-son relationship is put to the test and the kids learn a new authority is in town.