At the Manhattan law office of Granville & Baxter where Donaldo works, Brewster is told by executor Edward Roundfield that his recently deceased great-uncle Rupert Horn, whom he has never met, has left him his entire $300 million fortune with several stipulations: If he fails to meet all terms, he forfeits any remaining balance and inherits nothing.

Brewster decides to take the $30 million challenge, and Angela Drake, a paralegal from the law firm, is assigned to accompany him and keep track of his spending.

Brewster, who has never earned more than $11,000 a year, rents an expensive suite at the Plaza Hotel, hires personal staff on exorbitant salaries, and places bad gambling bets.

Realizing that he is making no headway, Brewster decides to run for mayor of New York City and throws most of his money at a protest campaign urging a vote for "none of the above."

Major candidates Heller and Salvino threaten to sue Brewster for his confrontational rhetoric, but they settle out of court for several million dollars.

He is forced to end his protest campaign when he learns that he is leading in the polls as a write-in candidate; the job carries an annual salary of $60,000, which is considered an asset under the terms of the will.

Spending his last $38,000 on a party after the game, Brewster becomes fed up with money and is heartbroken that Spike, Angela, and others around him do not understand his actions that he is prohibited from explaining.

Heading for Granville & Baxter law firm, he learns that the city voted "None of the Above," forcing another election in which neither Heller or Salvino are running.

Warren Cox, a junior lawyer from the law firm and Angela's fiancé, has been bribed by Granville and Baxter to ensure that Brewster fails to spend the entire $30 million.

The fictional baseball park, which was said to be in Hackensack, New Jersey, was actually the re-used set from the short-lived TV series, Bay City Blues.

The website's critical consensus reads, "With Richard Pryor's trademark ribald humor tamped down, Brewster's Millions feels like a missed opportunity to update a classic story.

[14] Janet Maslin, in her review for The New York Times, called the film "a screwball comedy minus the screws" which "does nothing to accommodate Mr. Pryor's singular comic talents".

Director Walter Hill, she said, did not understand "the advantages of screwball timing," and the film's slow pace and lack of style gives it "a fatuous artificiality".