Plot

Working class New York bus driver Ralph Kramden is always coming up with get-rich-quick schemes for him and his best friend, Ed Norton, who's always around to help him get in (and out of) trouble.

New York City bus driver Ralph Kramden and his feisty wife Alice struggle to make ends meet. Despite Ralph's many get-rich-quick schemes/motivational-speaker tape series, they've managed to save some money, and with their best friends Ed and Trixie Norton, they have almost enough money for a down-payment on a Brooklyn duplex. However, when Ralph decides to try to impress Alice by making up what he's lost and augmenting their savings with another of his crazy schemes, he winds up losing all their money and his marriage to boot--and it takes all his determination and love for Alice to get things on track again.—Sujit R. Varma

New York City bus driver Ralph Kramden (Cedric the Entertainer) and his feisty wife Alice (Gabrielle Union) struggle to make ends meet. Despite Ralph's many get-rich-quick schemes (the Y2K survival kit, the pet cactus, the Velcro fanny pack, the Mets merchandise on discount), they've managed to save some money. Along with their best friends Ed (Mike Epps) and Trixie Norton (Regina Hall), they almost have enough money for a down payment on a duplex in Brooklyn. Alice & Trixie work as waitress at a local diner. Ed is a sewer department employee. The duplex belongs to Miss Benvenutti (Alice Drummond) who is an old woman and is moving out of New York as she can't handle the winters anymore. They have two weeks to come up with the rest of the money or it well be sold to a developer William Davies (Eric Stoltz). the couples have 10k in their accounts and need $20k to make the down-payment in 2 weeks.

Alice decides to ask her mother (Carol Woods) for the rest of the money they need for the down payment. Ed is working the sewers one night and finds an abandoned shed with an exquisite, high class, preserved train car sitting right there. He tells Ralph that the city is going to auction the train car. Ralph has the brain wave to modify the train car and use it to give tours of New York city to tourists.

Ralph and Ed decide to buy a train found below the streets of New York they end up spending most of the money ($ 3000) Ralph and Alice have saved. Ed shuts out another buyer from the auction, who was very interested in the train. Lenny (Lenny Venito) is a mechanic and tells the guys that the train car is in good shape, but it is sitting 60 feet below street levels. Once they find out how much money it is going to take to get the train out Ralph and Ed decide on a new plan to get the money back. but none of their schemes (begging, looking for coins, asking for donations dressed as the Brooklyn youth club, hip hop dancing in the streets) are big enough to earn cash that fast.

Ralph and Ed had found a greyhound dog in the dumpster and decide to race the dog (after Ralph sees the dog run very fast in the park). The duo approaches the track owner Kirby (Jon Polito) who says that the weekend is the anniversary derby of the track with a prize purse of $20,000. Kirby agrees to give a time trial to Ralph and Ed's dog. He suggests that they approach Dodge (John Leguizamo), to train the dog. Dodge charges them $500 and only agrees to train the dog at night.

Ralph makes a story to Alice about a job at a lodge to get out of the house at night and to go with Ed to train the dog with Dodge. Dodge has to train the dog to start running when the cages open. Despite mind tricks and all sorts the cajoling, the dog still won't budge from his starting position. Eventually the dog only chases the blue ball that Ed plays with him with on their outings to the park. Using the ball, Ralph and Ed make the dog qualify for the race in front of Kirby. Dodge gets them the paperwork for the dog for $600. Meanwhile Alice's mom gives her a check for $10K. she thinks that they already have $10K in their accounts, and that together is their deposit. But when she finds that her account is empty, she is mad at Ralph and decides to leave him.

When William (who has private investigators trying to find out where the remaining $10K is coming from, as he knows that Ralph and Ed have nothing in their bank accounts) finds out they are going to make the money that way he pays off Kirby to not let the dog race. Ralph makes a speech about the down and out dumpster dog & so that gets the dog back into the race. Ed pulls out the dog's blue colored ball (with which he plays in the park) while he is in the race that could win the money and distracts the dog, and he loses. Ralph yells at Ed, which upsets Alice when she is already mad at him for spending all of their money.

Ralph is by the train he had bought (burning all of his previous business invention prototypes) when he finds the card of the other man that wanted to buy the train. Ralph decides to sell the train (for $20 K) to get the money back for the duplex. Once he gets the money, he makes up with Ed and they get to the seller in time to buy the place (before it's sold to the developer).

When they are all sitting down in the back yard eating, the dog brings the paper and on the front is the train Ralph sold that was in turn sold for one million dollars.