C.R. MacNamara is a high-ranking executive for Coca-Cola, working in West Berlin during the height of the Cold War. Ambitious and opportunistic, he sees a promotion to a top job in the company's Moscow office as his ticket to success. His plans, however, are disrupted when his boss in Atlanta asks him to look after his visiting daughter, Scarlett. Unbeknownst to her father, Scarlett has secretly married Otto, a passionate young East German communist. MacNamara realizes that if his boss were to discover this union, his chances at the dream job would be ruined.

Faced with this dilemma, MacNamara hatches a series of ingenious yet frantic schemes to transform Otto into a respectable capitalist suitable for high-society Atlanta. Along the way, MacNamara must manage not only Otto and Scarlett but also his demanding wife and a slew of intricate international entanglements, while facing pressure from both American and Soviet authorities. Balancing corporate ambitions with the political tensions of the time, he orchestrates a cascade of hilarious events in his desperate bid to safeguard his future. With each plan falling apart more spectacularly than the last, MacNamara's life becomes an increasingly chaotic race against time.