QUEENPINS
*CUT TO THE CHASE*NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy
The film opens with a team of FBI agents bursting into the home of Connie Kaminski (Kristen Bell) to arrest her. Her voiceover narration says that she is getting ahead of herself in the story, so she goes back to the beginning.
Almost a year earlier, Connie is shown being jobless and saving money with coupons. She is married to IRS agent Rick (Joel McHale), who is unpleasant and unsupportive toward Connie, only telling her to get a job instead of being home stocking up on products that she bought with coupons. They have also tried to conceive a child, but Connie suffered a miscarriage and they are paying off debts from fertility treatments. Connie is best friends with Joanna “JoJo” Johnson (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), who lives with her mother, Mama Josie (Greta Oglesby). JoJo has been unable to secure proper employment since she had her identity stolen, so she makes YouTube videos to try and generate revenue. The local mailman, Earl (Dayo Okeniyi), has an obvious crush on JoJo.
After a particularly frustrating day, Connie writes a complaint letter to General Mills about the Wheaties she ate being stale, and soon, she receives a coupon for a free box of cereal. She then learns from JoJo that companies do this all the time, so she writes multiple complaint letters to receive multiple free coupons. The ladies then learn that the coupons come from a factory in Chihuahua, Mexico, and they hatch a plan to head down there and collect the coupons to redistribute to other moms and wives.
In Carson City, Nevada, Ken Miller (Paul Walter Hauser) works as an agent to prevent losses for certain stores and companies. He chides a woman at a store for attempting to use a fake coupon for a discount, even though the cashier is willing to let it slide. Ken travels back to his home in Salt Lake City, where he is just lonely.
Connie and JoJo make their travel to Mexico and encounter a couple, Alejandro (Francisco Rodriguez) and Rosa (Ilia Paulino), who agree to help them out by taking the unused coupons. Once they get their hands on them, the ladies begin their own website and small business “Savvy Super Saver”, which helps them sell a lot of coupons and generate profit. However, this also catches the attention of Ken, who learns about the coupons and the losses some companies are taking. Ken annoys his superiors until he makes it an official case that he can take on.
The ladies’ account is frozen due to suspicious activity, so Connie finds out they need to prove they are a legitimate business. With that, they must turn to the hacker that stole JoJo’s identity, Tempe Tina (Bebe Rexha). They get in touch with Tina and are taken to her secret location, where she instructs Connie and JoJo on how to keep their operation lowkey and how to keep their money secure, including by using JoJo’s cosmetics brand Back 2 Black as a front for their coupon business.
After six months, Connie and JoJo figure their money is safe to use, but because it’s dirty money, they need to spend it and clean it. They start buying things like sports cars, boats, planes, and guns. Meanwhile, Ken is partnered with a rep from the post office named Simon Kilmurry (Vince Vaughn). Tempe Tina then contacts Connie and JoJo for their overspending and tells them that their money was always clean, and now their purchases are just making them look more suspicious. Tina tells them to take money out from the bank in small increments and to get rid of all their big purchases.
JoJo later takes Connie to the fertility clinic where she decides to give it another shot at getting pregnant. Instead of using Rick’s sample, she uses an anonymous donor instead. They later sell off their guns to a militia.
Ken and Simon bond on their mission, with Simon sympathizing with Ken for how much devotion he puts to the job. They go around interviewing people from grocery stores where the ladies have shopped, and almost all of them recognize Connie because they find her constant use of coupons to be irritating. They are even able to place her behind the super saver website because their slogan is the same phrase that Connie uses when she shops. When they interview a group of postal workers, they remember JoJo because Earl is always watching her videos. He ends up trying to warn her while Ken and Simon try and stake out by her house.
After gathering more evidence on the women, Ken and Simon are able to get agents to go and arrest Connie and JoJo. The two are placed in jail, but while JoJo is let out on bail, Connie is only visited by Rick so he can admonish her for what she has done. Having had enough of his lack of support, she declares that she wants a divorce. The ladies are then put on trial, where JoJo is given ten days in prison plus a year of probation, while Connie is sentenced to eleven months, but possibly eight with good behavior. Ken thinks they were let off too easy, but the companies that the ladies ripped off just wanted the case swept under the rug to avoid bad publicity.
JoJo begins a relationship with Earl and relocates to Montenegro where they can keep using the make-up business front and continue the coupon business there to avoid the law. Connie stocks up on goods in prison and has gotten pregnant. She continues to try and look on the upside as she makes it through her sentence.
Best friends Connie Kaminski and JoJo Johnson are struggling financially. Being avid coupon users, they learn that there is a factory in Mexico that distributes coupons for free products, so they make a deal with two employees from the factory to gather the coupons and sell them to other moms and wives. They end up generating large profits but run into legal troubles with their money. The ladies get help from a hacker called Tempe Tina, who also stole JoJo's identity years ago, to help them keep their business tight.
Meanwhile, a rep for a supermarket chain, Ken Miller, catches wind of the coupon business and teams up with a rep from the post office, Simon Kilmurry, to track the ladies down. Although Connie and JoJo do their best to stay hidden, they are eventually caught and arrested.
JoJo is sentenced to ten days in jail plus a year of probation, while Connie gets 8-11 months, depending on good behavior. She divorces her unsupportive husband and gets pregnant through fertility treatments. JoJo also relocates to Montenegro to keep the coupon business running discreetly.