[citation needed] Two film academy students, Ali (Vatsal Sheth) and Sameer (Sohail Khan), must make a movie in order to graduate.

They choose to create a documentary illustrating reasons not to join the Indian Armed Forces and go on a motorcycle road trip bearing three letters they have been given to deliver — each from a slain soldier to his family.

On their first stop, in Atari, Amritsar, they meet the widow, Kuljeet Kaur (Preity Zinta), and the son, Jasswinder Singh [Jassi] (Dwij Yadav), of a Sikh soldier, Havaldar (Sergeant) Balkar Singh of 8 Sikh Regiment (Salman Khan), who was killed in action three years earlier.

The third letter is to be delivered to a Mr. and Mrs. Naqvi (played by Mithun Chakraborty and Prateeksha Lonkar), but their bike runs out of petrol, and they hitch a ride on a military convoy heading to a nearby base.

At the base, they talk to the regiment commander and find another letter by Lt. Sahil Naqvi of Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry (Dino Morea), which they request to deliver themselves.

After completing their film, they reveal in a voiceover that although they graduated, they did not go to America (as they had initially planned) because the trip changed their outlook.

Originally titled Mera Bharat Mahaan (My India is Great), the film was rechristened Heroes, to avoid sounding jingoistic.

But it argues the director is too simplistic and that wringing emotion out of so many situations causes even the supreme sacrifice that the soldiers make turn trite.