Three death row prisoners escape from the jail and hijack a plane where Abdul Salim, a scientist, owns a miracle drug. The pilot, instead of listening to the hijackers' instruction, manages to land in the Kashmir mountain. There, Snobir, a sadistic terrorist leader threatens the passengers to recover the drugs. The pilot and the national boxing champion Pailwan plan to save the passengers and try to escape but they are caught during the plan and are taken as prisoners. Both attack and kill many terrorists; everyone escapes and everything goes smoothly until an ambush occurs on a bridge. The brave Pailwan sacrifices himself to save the pilot and the passengers. Elsewhere, the short-tempered Sakthivel who is a family friend of Abdul Salim, and Abdul Salim's daughter Shakeela plan to save everyone so they find their crashed plane and they enter as prisoners. Sakthivel also lies that he is the scientist and tells the terrorist head to release everyone. The film ends with Sakthivel single-handedly killing all the terrorists and saving the day.
Kalki called dialogues, cinematography and grandeur as positives but felt Arun Pandian, Ranjitha and Napoleon were wasted and concluded saying what can one say and praise the director who has given a comedy film with an action coating with a serious subject like Kashmir.[4] D. S. Ramanujam of The Hindu wrote, "Thaayagam, a costly movie made in the snowy regions, will offer visual thrill and action, despite the obvious flaws in narration and screenplay". He added, "Netaji's dialogue driving home this bitter truth. But his screenplay has lot of loopholes, which the director A. R. Ramesh has not corrected".[5] The film won the Tamil Nadu State Film Special Award for Best Actor (Vijayakanth) and Best Lyricist (Piraisoodan).[6][7]
