Modify Widgets/Plugins via HOOKS

i installed a lovely plugin/widget on a WORDPRESS site and i want to modify the output to my liking (WITHOUT EDITING THE PLUGIN/WIDGET CODE). i have played around with HOOKS and FILTERS but no success as of yet. i was hoping someone could shed some light or point me in the right direction…

here is an idea of the widget INIT function… the function i want to over ride lives inside…
[Code moderated as per the Forum Rules. The maximum number of lines of code that you can post in these forums is ten lines. Please use the pastebin]

so here is my attempt (wrong but hopefully it will show where i am trying to go)…

in my functions.php…

// my replacement function
function function_to_take_over_mg($args) {
	extract($args);
	$options = get_option('function_to_take_over');
	op_function();
}

function mod_wig(){
	add_filter('function_to_take_over', 'function_to_take_over_mg');
}
add_action('plugins_loaded', 'mod_wig');

thanks for any and all insight!

m