A popular high school student seems to have it all; a spot on the football team, the love of playing music in the school orchestra and a girlfriend. His world seems to come apart when the school doctor discovers he is partially deaf, causing him to be cut from the football team on the advice of the doctor. The student's friends fight to keep him on the team; while he struggles with his problem by withdrawing from everything he loves and starts falling in with the wrong crowd.

A genius grad student organizes an all-night treasure hunt in which five rival teams composed of colorful oddballs furiously match wits with one another while trying to locate and decipher various cryptic clues planted ingeniously around Los Angeles.