When muckraking Chicago reporter Ernie Souchak (John Belushi) runs afoul of the big city mob, his editor (Allen Garfield) has the brainstorm to send him to the Rocky Mountains where mobsters never venture. There, Ernie covers the wildlife expert Nell (Blair Brown) whose love of wildlife eschews Ernie’s love of life that is wild. The two have a battle of the sexes with a deep abiding romance hiding underneath. But, Souchak is strictly a city boy and his need to work in Chicago seems to undercut any chance for him to stay in the woods with a bird scientist who is willing to come to the city to sample Ernie’s life.