Sholay is the story of a cop who arrest a dreaded dacoit and puts him in jail. Furious and mad with revenge, the dacoit escapes from prsion and wipes off thakur's entire family. The dacoit also chops off the hands of the thakur. It is now the thakur's turn to avenge the murder of his family and he does it from outside police system. He hires two notorious criminals and trains them to confront the dacoit. The rest of the film has comaraderie of the two criminals who are also bosom buddies, their romantic flings, the face- offs with the thakur and finally the war against the dreaded dacoit 'Gabbar Singh' . In the violence of killing 'Gabbar Singh' one of the friends dies.