Bhujang (Amrish Puri) is a powerful crime Lord who has managed to assassinate an honest politician - for which the police department comes under huge pressure. The police department assigns Inspector Karan (Sunny Deol) to the mission to find out who is the mastermind responsible.

Inspector Karan is the son of a respected Judge in the same jurisdiction in which Bhujang resides and where the assassination had taken place. Inspector Karan is also engaged to Ms. Divya, who is the daughter of Commissioner Mathur in the same jurisdiction. Commissioner Mathur also has a son Ravi (Jackie Shroff), whom he abhors because his son is so violent in nature.

In his mission, Inspector Karan manages to catch a crooked and corrupt arms dealer, Mr. Ramesh, who helps him arrest Don (who had supplied firearms for Bhujang for all his assassinations in the past).

Later on, Bhujang finds out about Inspector Karan and so he is framed with the help of Mr. Ramesh, the crooked arms-dealer, but due to his guilty consciousness, Ramesh goes ahead and tells Karan's father (the Judge) about the hook-up (how Bhujang has framed and incriminated his son Karan). When Bhujang finds out that Ramesh has double-crossed him, he has both Ramesh and the Judge killed and Karan's father's death is made to look like suicide.

After this, Bhujang decides to bribe corrupt Inspector Suraj for his next assassinations.

Even though Commissioner Mathur is aware of Karan's honesty, being under pressure from seniors, he transfers Karan to a remote village far away from Bhujang. There, Inspector Karan meets a guy named Jai Singh (Naseeruddin Shah) - who is a philanthropist, fights criminals and helps the poor. Jai Singh meets actress Renu (Sonam) and they fall in love. Karan gets a chance to be friends with Jai, and learns that in his childhood, Jai's father was a freedom fighter and was murdered by Dacoit Bhairav. The police headed by Commissioner Mathur had refused to listen to his statements at that time, regarding the murder case, so he remained helpless.

Back in the city, Bhujang's brother (his partner in crime) is taken into custody. So, Bhujang decides to abduct Commissioner Mathur's daughter Divya in order to release his brother. Divya immediately contacts her fiancé Inspector Karan, but he can not be reached, as he is now the next target for Bhujang, who want to finish him off. She tries to warn him but it is too late....

Ravi (Commissioner's Mathur's violent son and Inspector Karan's future brother in law) breaks the law and releases his sister and there he meets Mr. Ramesh's (the deceased crooked arms-dealer)'s sister Natasha (Sangeeta Bijlani) - who is part of a gang to avenge her brother Ramesh's death which was carried out by Bhujang and his henchmen. Natasha works closely with journalist Shrikant. Ravi and Natasha eventually grow close and fall in love, but unluckily Bhujang's sons find out that the journalist Shrikant is double-timing the Bhujang family, so he is poisoned to his death immediately by the corrupt Inspector Suraj.

When Commissioner Mathur decides to bring Inspector Karan back, Bhujang, Don and Bhujang's two sons decide to finish him off once and for all. Before doing that, they reveal that they killed his father. Inspector Karan is shocked to see Ravi and Inspector Suraj working for his enemies. When they burn the entire house with petrol after tying Inpector Karan on his bed, Ravi is kind enough to place a knife near Karan (without anyone's knowledge). The whole house burned, but Karan manages to escape - thanks to Ravi's help - Karan swears vengeance on Bhujang and his team and meanwhile, his fiancee Divya continues to grieve for him as she hears rumours about his death, whereby his house was set on fire.

Jai Singh is sad that he was unable to save his new found-friend Karan and leaves the village in sorrow. Later on, he is lucky enough to be hired by a famous politician Sir Mantrijee - as a body guard for his daughter - Renuka, with whom he eventually falls in love and plans to marry, but before he can propose, her father arranges her wedding to one of Bujang's sons. Jai plans to meet Renuka's father and explain to him where he meets Bhujang himself, whom he immediately recognises as the Dacoit Bhairav (who had murdered his own father ages ago).

Inspector Karan now knows most of Bhujang's inside plans, and continues to destroy Bhujang's arms and properties secretly with the help of RAVI (Divya's brother). As usual, Bhujang is unstoppable in his criminal plans and his next master plan is to rob an International Bank.

Ravi gets the information and blueprint, and hands it secretly to Inspector Karan, who is now ever-vigilant on Bhujang and his team. Jai Singh also gets the inside information (overhears) the conversation between Renuka's father and Renuka's fiancé (Bhujang's son). At first, Renu refuses to believe that her fiancee is going to rob a bank! Later, she witnesses it and believes her lover, Jai. At the bank, Inspector Karan arrests the corrupt Inspector Suraj, who is helping Bhujang carry out the robbery, and also the entire group of criminals is caught and locked up behind bars. Here, Jai is happy to see his long-lost friend doing a good job and Divya is re-united with her long-lost lover whom she presumed dead.

But by now, Bhujang is aware of Karan, Ravi and Jai as "Tridev" partners who have exposed their identity so he hatches up another plan to blackmail them: He captures a large group of policemen along with Natasha (Ramesh's sister and Ravi's lover), Renuka (the famous politician's daughter and Jai's lover), Divya (Inspector Karan's fiancee/Commissioner Mathur's daughter) and demands the team to surrender and admit that they are dangerous criminals. At the end, the "Tridev" attack the hideout and destroy the enemy.

• Naseeruddin Shah as Jay Singh
• Sunny Deol as Inspector Karan Saxena
• Jackie Shroff as Ravi Mathur
• Madhuri Dixit as Divya Mathur
• Sonam as Renuka
• Sangeeta Bijlani as Natasha Tejani
• Anupam Kher as Commissioner Mathur
• Amrish Puri as Bhujang/Bhairav Singh
• Raza Murad as Mantriji
• Dalip Tahil as Don
• Sharat Saxena as Inspector Suraj Singh
• Tej Sapru as Bhujang's Son Goga
• Dan Dhanoa as Bhujang's Son Ranga
• Mahesh Anand as Bhujang's Son
• Rajesh Vivek as Raghav
• Anjana Mumtaz as Sudha Mathur
• Yunus Parvez as Film Director
• Subiraj as Judge Saxena
• Satyajeet as Inspector Tripathi
• Shekhar Suman as Shrikant Verma
• Vijayendra Ghatge as Ramesh Tejani
• Ajit Vachhani as Don's Lawyer

At the 35th Filmfare Awards, Tridev won two awards from six nominations.

The music was scored by Kalyanji Anandji ,arrangements by Viju Shah and the lyrics by Anand Bakshi. The songs of this album like "Tirchi Topiwale", "Gali Gali Main Phirta Hai", "Rat Bhar Jaam Se", "Gajar Ne kiya hai ishara" and "Main Teri Mohabbat Main" were very popular.