The movie story deals with Raju (Akshay Kumar) is a tenant of Baburao Ganpatrao Apte a.k.a. Babu Bhaiyya (Paresh Rawal) and has not paid his rent for a long time. Raju does not believe in hard work and wants to earn easy money. He cons everybody, even his mother (Sulabha Arya), who thinks that her son works in Calcutta. Baburao, a bespectacled long-sighted man, runs the "Star Garage". He has a familial debt with many money-lenders and has hard time with them. Shyam a.k.a. Ghanshyam (Sunil Shetty) has come to Mumbai from Gurgaon seeking a job in his late father's bank. Apparently his father died in a fire that broke out in the bank and he claims that the bank owes him the job. He badly needs the money for his friend Khadak Singh's (Om Puri) sister's marriage. A young woman, Anuradha Panniker (Tabu), is also in the running for the job, her father having died two minutes before Shyam's. Shyam meets Raju and a misunderstanding causes Shyam to think that Raju is a pickpocket. A fight ensues between the two, and Raju escapes, leaving his wallet with Shyam. After Raju leaves, Shyam discovers that he had his own wallet on him all the time. Unfortunately, this realisation comes just as Raju returns with two policemen, insisting that Shyam has robbed him. Later that evening, Shyam reaches Star Garage. Baburao agrees to take him in as a paying boarder, although he warns Shyam that he will have to share the place with another boarder and will have to help with the household chores. Unfortunately for Shyam, the other boarder is Raju, who has not paid Baburao a single penny of rent in the last two years. The two men come to blows again the minute they see each other. Raju vociferously objects to Shyam's presence and threatens to move out. Baburao is nonplussed by Raju's indignation and calls his bluff. Eventually, Raju backs down, claiming that he's only staying because he owes Baburao and he hates to leave debts. The two men are constantly at each other's throats, and poor Baburao often ends up suffering the physical consequences of their conflict. Raju manages to trick Shyam into signing a document that says he will give the bank position to Anuradha. When Shyam discovers the fraud, he threatens to sue both the bank and Anuradha. Panicked, the bank manager tries to get Anuradha to seduce Shyam, but he's having none of it. Eventually, she makes a deal to give him the position in exchange for money. Shyam is unable to get the money, and when he goes to bluff his way through the deal, he discovers that Anuradha is living with her mentally ill mother in abject poverty. She admits that she discovered that Shyam's own financial situation was as bad as her own, and that she didn't have the heart to go through with her plan, so she gives him her resignation letter. Shyam refuses, insisting that he could never live with himself if he accepted, and that she should keep the position. The two of them become friends and even begin a romance. Meanwhile, Khadak Singh shows up at the bank looking for Shyam, whom he believes to have stiffed him. The bank manager gives him Baburao's address. Raju is only too glad to put in a "good word" for Shyam with Khadak Singh, and it is only thanks to Baburao's intervention that Shyam escapes being throttled by Khadak Sing. Shyam, however gets even with Raju by shaking him down for gas money in front of his mother, threatening to reveal to her that he isn't really earning good money as he claims to be. Baburao is constantly getting called by people who want to speak to a Mr. Deviprasad (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), which annoys him no end. One day, however, things become serious when a kidnapper named Kabeera (Gulshan Grover) asks for Deviprasad. Only, this time, he's asking for a ransom to be paid for Deviprasad's granddaughter Rinku (Ann Alexia Anra of Avvai Shanmughi fame). The trio figures out that the phone numbers for Star Garage and Star Fisheries, of which Deviprasad is the owner, have been mistakenly transposed in the telephone directory. Now, Raju decides to benefit from this situation and has Shyam call Deviprasad posing as Kabira and demanding double the amount asked by Kabeera so that they can pocket the other half themselves while satisfying the ransom demand. However, when the rich man's employee realises that Deviprasad's granddaughter might have been kidnapped, he involves the police. Angry that the police showed up at the exchange spot, Deviprasad threatens to shoot Inspector Prakash (Mukesh Khanna) with his own revolver, thereby allowing Raju, Shyam and Baburao to escape in the confusion. Kabeera's plans are thwarted, and as punishment for involving the police, he calls the trio again and doubles the ransom.