Tommy Craine has the typical worries of any sophomore, passing summer U.S. history, getting his ex-cop dad off his back about college, and getting the girl of his dreams to notice him. However, after he witnesses his father being framed and taken away by dirty cops, his finds himself thrust into the dangerous career of ‘action hero.’ Tommy never thought knowing his father’s security codes to the Mall of America would be useful, but the empty shopping center is the perfect hiding place. In the dead of night, after all the customers are gone, he discovers all the necessities for life and thwarting the plot against his father. The media embraces the case, and dubs Mr. Craine a fugitive from justice. Apparently the cops who kidnapped him implicated him in many crimes committed when he was on the force, but neglected to tell anyone that they had him in their custody.

Tommy’s most trusted friend, Mickey, a computer whiz, helps the teen fugitive defeat the security system of the mall and exploit the consumer heaven that is the largest mall in the world. They take advantage of their free reign, as anyone might, but eventually settle into uncovering the assailants, a former partner of his father’s from before Craine went into security system design. Meanwhile, Tommy still pines for Dana, a girl who only seems to date the quarterback (and his Ferrari) and to whom he has spoken about three sentences. When he discovers she works in the Mall, he decides he has little to lose and makes his move. After the most romantic date ever imagined, in which Tommy utilizes the entire abandoned Mall, she is taken into confidence and set about to spy. The fourth member recruited to restore justice, Amanda, makes snow cones in the amusement park in the middle of the mall, Camp Snoopy; she’d do just about anything to ‘mess with the dog.’ After the cops find Tommy’s hiding place, the heroes – or as they see themselves, the subjects of a future movie that Tommy threatens to write – must finally have a showdown.

The cops have Tommy’s father, but they don’t have what they really want, an envelope of information that Mr. Craine hid in the Mall. Tommy locates the information, realizing it contains everything needed to put the dirty cops (and unfortunately his father as well) behind bars. He offers a trade. The cops bring Tommy’s father to the Mall at three in the morning, not realizing that the entire four-square-block complex is booby-trapped in every nook and cranny. A giant chase ensues throughout the Mall and Camp Snoopy, and, with the aid of some hopeless security guards, the dirty cops are brought to justice. And Tommy leaves the Mall.