Updating of the old "Aladdin" Arabian Nights tale, as a teenager in modern-day Miami finds a magic lantern and out pops a genie, who's been asleep for 200 years and in his gratitude grants the boy several wishes.

a teenage boy named Al Haddin, nicknamed "Aladdin", who is living with his widowed mother Janet and his alcoholic grandfather Jeremiah in Miami, Florida. He and his family live in poverty since his father's untimely demise; his mother slaves away in the nightclub of Monti Siracusa, a local mobster boss who runs a citywide protection racket. Jeremiah aggravates this situation by blowing the little money Janet makes on alcohol and horse races. Al has to work part-time in an antique shop to support his family as best he can. One day, Al's boss brings an old lamp, which a fisherman acquaintance of his has just salvaged from the ocean, to the store and orders Al to polish it. As Al rubs on the lamp, a genie - the very one from Aladdin's tale - suddenly appears before him and proclaims him his new master.