A dam in the village of Solaiyur, which is the lifeline of that village is under assessment for structural integrity by the Public Works Department. The dam inspector (Ponvannan) assesses that the dam is still strong 75 years after it was built. Later that evening, he is hanged to death by the corrupt local MP Nagabhushan (Jagapathi Babu), who wants the dam destroyed for his own benefit. The dying dam inspector throws a pen drive containing details about the proposed plan to destroy the dam into an abandoned Shiva temple near the dam and warns the village head Karunakara (K. Viswanath) that the temple has to be opened as soon as possible, after which he passes away. Karunakara and the villagers are of the opinion that the temple can only be opened by the descendant of Raja Lingeswaran (Rajnikanth), who built the dam as well as the Shiva temple. Lakshmi (Anushka Shetty), the granddaughter of Karunakara and a television journalist, goes on a search to find the Raja’s descendant. She soon manages to find the descendant, whose name is Lingeswaran aka Lingaa (Rajnikanth). Lingaa is the grandson of Raja Lingeswaran, but is a petty thief with his family having now fallen on hard times. He holds a grudge against his grandfather, feeling that he had brought down his family into poverty by squandering all his wealth and hence refuses to go with Lakshmi to Solaiyur. However, Lakshmi implicates Lingaa in a robbery, as a result of which the police pursue Lingaa. Lingaa is forced to accept Lakshmi’s invitation to avoid getting caught and travels with her to Solaiyur.

Chulbul Pandey encounters an enemy from his past, and his origin story as the fearless cop unfolds.

Shiva (Akshay Kumar) is a small-time thief in Mumbai who falls in love with Paro (Sonakshi Sinha) from Patna. He tells her the truth about being a thief and resolves to give up crime because he loves Paro dearly. Before that, he decides to commit a large robbery along with his con-friend 2G (Paresh Ganatra), which would enable him to earn a lot of money; hence he can give up crime. He “tricks” a woman on a railway station and flees with a trunk. This leads Shiva to Chinki, a little girl who was in the trunk instead of the wealth he thought was there. Chinki thinks that he is her father. Puzzled, he is forced to keep Chinki with him, as a police officer Vishal Sharma (Yashpal Sharma) keeps his eye on him.

Agastya (Akshay Kumar) is a scientist, working on the development of a communication system, to communicate with aliens. But Agastya loses the faith of his seniors and is allotted with a deadline of one month to conclude his project with some substantial results.
In the mean time Agastya is informed by his girlfriend Diva (Sonakshi Sinha) about his father’s illness. On hearing this they both reaches his native village Paglapur, whose colourful inhabitants include a man who speaks in gibberish, another who thinks he is a lamp post and everyone else who think that the World War II is still going on.