In London, film student Sue McKinley finds the diary of her grandfather James, who served as a Colonel for the British Raj in the 1930s. James oversaw the capture and execution of five Indian freedom fighters - Chandrasekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru, Ashfaqulla Khan, and Ram Prasad Bismil - and has written in his diary about his admiration for their revolutionary spirit in spite of working for the British Empire.

Inspired by the revolutionaries' story, Sue decides to make a film on them and travels to India, where she searches for actors with the help of her friend Sonia, an international studies student at the University of Delhi. Amid a string of unsuccessful auditions, Sue meets Sonia's friends: Daljit "DJ" Singh, Karan Singhania, Sukhi Ram and Aslam Khan. She immediately decides to cast them in her film, with DJ as Chandra Shekhar Azad, Karan Singhania as Bhagat Singh, Aslam Khan as Ashfaqulla Khan, and Sukhi Ram as Shivaram Rajguru.

DJ, Aslam, Sukhi and the spendthrift Karan, who is the spoilt son of political businessman Rajnath Singhania, are carefree and cynical about their futures, and while they easily get along with Sue, they remain uninterested in working on a film expressing patriotism towards India. Tensions arise when Sue casts the boys' rival, the right-wing party activist Laxman Pandey as Bismil. However, over the course of working on the film, Pandey grows closer to the others. Sue begins a relationship with DJ.

The group becomes devastated when their friend Ajay Singh Rathod, a flight lieutenant in the Indian Air Force and Sonia's fiancée, is killed when his MiG-21 jet malfunctions and crashes. The government attributes the accident to pilot error and closes the case, but Sonia and her friends refuse to accept the official explanation, remembering Ajay as a skilled pilot who died while steering the plane away from crashing into a populous city. They learn that the corrupt Defense Minister, Shastri, signed a contract importing cheap parts for MiG-21 aircraft in exchange for a personal favor. Karan, however, is severely jolted when he realizes that Rajnath was involved in orchestrating the deal.

Galvanized against the corruption of the government by their efforts working on the film, the group organizes a peaceful protest at the India Gate war memorial, but the police arrive and violently break up the demonstration with Ajay's mother going into a coma. Laxman realizes that his senior party official, Raghuvir Mishra, was in league with the government officials ordered the police to stop the protest and becomes disillusioned with his own party. Inspired by the revolutionaries, the group decides to take action themselves and they assassinate Shastri to avenge Ajay's death, while Karan confronts and murders Rajnath.

The media reports that Shastri was killed by terrorists and celebrates him as a martyr. The group decides to publicly clarify their intent behind the assassination, and take over the All India Radio station after evacuating its employees and alerting Karan's friend Rahul, who works there and is live at the moment. Karan goes on air and calls out the defense ministry's corruption to the public. The police arrive at the station under instructions to kill them. Sukhi is shot dead, while Aslam and Laxman are killed by a grenade and DJ is severely injured. DJ reunites with Karan in the recording room as the latter finishes his public statement, and the two of them get killed together.

News of the boys' death enrages the public, spurring a wave of demonstrations against the Indian government. Ajay's mother awakes from her coma. The film ends with Sue describing the personal impact of meeting the boys and working on the film, while the deceased boys are seen in an afterlife-like state meeting a young Bhagat Singh in his family garden.