Dostana is an action romantic thriller drama about Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) and Ravi (Shatrughan Sinha) who are childhood friends. Vijay is an upright honest police officer while Ravi is a criminal lawyer and they do not question each other about their careers. While Vijay catches criminals, Ravi bails those criminals out of which most are the hired goons of smuggler Daaga (Prem Chopra). One day both Vijay and Ravi meet Sheetal (Zeenat Aman) at different places and fall in love with her. Sheetal reciprocates Vijay’s love while the former takes Ravi only as a friend. Ravi gets to know about Vijay and Sheetal's affair and feels betrayed and breaks his friendship. Ravi and Vijay's enimosity helps Daaga to florish his business. Later, Ravi comes to know about an unfortunate misunderstanding that led to his breakup with Vijay and joins hands again with him to put an end to Daaga's crimes.