 A genie (Lenny Henry) is punished by an evil wizard by being confined to a lamp somewhere in Arabia. 2000 years later in England Bernard Bottle (Alan Cumming) an Art dealer, who has just been sacked by his nasty and greedy boss (Rowan Atkinson) and then discovered his girlfriend has gone off with his so called best mate taking almost everything from his flat with her, decides to give the lamp a rub. The next thing he knows the genie is loose and soon Bernard befriends him and finds the genie can give him as many wishes as he likes. Things start to go horribly wrong though when Bernard decides to wish for one of the most famous paintings in the world and the police think he has stolen it...