FBI agent Johnny Utah goes undercover to infiltrate a cache of Southern California surfers suspected of robbing banks. Utah, a former football player, is assigned to Los Angeles. There, four bank robbers, who wear rubber masks and call themselves Ex-Presidents, have executed a series of successful robberies which embarrassingly have the FBI stumped. Utah and his partner Pappas suspect that the robbers are surfers and hatch a plan for catching them....

Young FBI agent Johnny Utah goes undercover at the suggestion of his partner to learn if a group of wild surfers is actually a gang of bank robbers. He soon comes under the dangerous spell of the surfers' charismatic leader, Bodhi, a mystical mastermind who'll do absolutely anything for a thrill-- and expects his followers to do the same.