Suicide SquadSave

Six months after the events of Batman v Superman (2016). The world is mourning Superman's death. America's political and intelligence services are alarmed by the increasing number of metahumans — superpowered beings, both heroic and villainous — emerging across the planet. Amanda Waller — Viola Davis, in a power suit, the head of America's classified ARGUS intelligence agency — has a proposal for the Pentagon and the Senate. If a Kryptonian-class threat were to attack the United States, the country's military has no countermeasure. Her solution: assemble a team of imprisoned metahuman criminals — the worst of the worst — and weaponize them under government control. They'll perform black-ops missions. They'll be expendable. They'll all have implanted neck-bomb collars that detonate at her command if they disobey. If they survive missions, their sentences get reduced. If they don't, no one cares. She calls the program Task Force X. The Senate, terrified after the Superman incident, approves.

Recruitment. The film opens with a series of intercut character introductions filmed in a music-video-style high-saturation cut that became the film's signature aesthetic. Deadshot — Floyd Lawton (Will Smith), the world's deadliest gun-for-hire, currently incarcerated at Belle Reve Federal Prison in Louisiana — is the team's marquee asset. His emotional vulnerability is his daughter Zoe, who he visits in supervisizd parental meetings during prison breaks. Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) is the other showcase character — formerly Dr. Harleen Quinzel, a Gotham City psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum who fell into a tank of chemicals during the Joker's psychological seduction and became his deranged accomplice. The flashbacks show her descent — fluorescent dye in her hair, gold-tooth grills, the chemical bath that turned her white-skinned. El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) is Chato Santana, a former Hispanic gang member with pyrokinetic powers who burned his own wife and children alive in a fit of rage and has spent two years in solitary refusing to use his powers. Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) is Waylon Jones, a regressive-evolution metahuman with reptilian features and acid-spitting capability, eating sewer rats in Belle Reve's deepest cell. Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) is George "Digger" Harkness, an Australian metahuman thief whose ridiculous boomerang skill is his entire gimmick. Slipknot (Adam Beach) is Christopher Weiss, an assassin who can climb any surface using grappling-line technology. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) is the U.S. Army colonel who will lead them. Katana (Karen Fukuhara) is the team's volunteer sword-wielding good guy.

Enchantress. Dr. June Moone (Cara Delevingne) is a young archaeologist who, on a recent expedition into a Central American cave system, accidentally uncovered an ancient idol containing an entity known as the Enchantress — a thousand-year-old witch goddess. Enchantress possessed June's body and has been alternating between human Dr. Moone and the green-skinned, naked, witch-form alter ego. Waller, suspicious of the Enchantress's power, performed surgery on the possessed June Moone to physically extract Enchantress's heart from her body and keep it in a vault at ARGUS. The heart contains Enchantress's connection to the supernatural world — possessing the heart means controlling the witch. June Moone is now an ARGUS asset who can transform into Enchantress at Waller's command. Waller plans to use Enchantress as her primary Task Force X enforcer.

Enchantress rebels. The Enchantress, sensing Waller's leverage, double-crosses ARGUS within days of being deployed. She frees her brother Incubus — a separate, even-more-ancient witch entity who had been imprisoned alongside her — from his Central American hiding place. She possesses a businessman in Midway City. She and Incubus together begin transforming the entire Midway City population into mindless minions through what they call the Eyes of the Adversary — a black-magic mind-control hex that radiates outward from the city center. They plan to construct a massive Eyes of the Adversary weapon that will turn the entire planet's population into Enchantress-controlled drones. Midway City is in lockdown. The U.S. military cannot deploy because the metahumans are too dangerous to engage conventionally. Waller activates Task Force X.

The mission begins. The Squad — Deadshot, Harley, Diablo, Boomerang, Croc, Slipknot, Katana, and Flag — boards a transport helicopter heading to Midway City. Flag explains the mission as a VIP extraction — they're recovering a high-value asset from the city center who has been trapped by Enchantress's hex. He doesn't yet tell them the VIP is Waller herself. They have neck bombs. Boomerang, Slipknot, and Croc are skeptical that the bombs are real. Slipknot scales a city wall to test the theory and tries to flee. Flag activates Slipknot's bomb. Slipknot's head explodes onto the concrete in mid-climb. The rest of the squad understands the bombs are real. They cooperate.

Crash and city navigation. The transport helicopter is shot down over Midway City by Enchantress's mutated drones. Flag, Deadshot, Harley, Diablo, Boomerang, Croc, and Katana parachute or rappel into the city center. They fight through Enchantress-mutated civilians as they navigate to the city's central tower. The team starts to bond in firefights — Harley's chaos meshes with Deadshot's professionalism, Diablo's reluctant compassion balances Croc's animal instinct. The Joker (Jared Leto), monitoring the situation from a helicopter Waller doesn't know about, has been tracking Harley's neck bomb's signal and is preparing a rescue.

Joker's rescue attempt. Joker, in his trademark purple suit and grill, arrives at a Midway City tower where the Squad has temporarily holed up. He uses an EMP device to deactivate Harley's neck bomb. He pulls Harley onto his rescue helicopter. They begin to fly out of the city. Waller, monitoring via satellite, activates anti-aircraft missiles. The Joker's helicopter is shot down. Harley falls out of the wreckage. The Joker is presumed dead. Harley, in shock, returns to the Squad. She has now lost the Joker again. She is more emotionally invested in the squad's mission.

The VIP is Waller. The Squad reaches the city's central tower and discovers that Amanda Waller herself is the VIP they've been sent to extract. She has been trapped at the top of the tower since Enchantress's takeover. The team is furious — they've been deployed to rescue the same person who put bombs in their necks. Waller, captured by Enchantress in the next scene, is brought down into the city subway system where Enchantress's Eyes of the Adversary weapon is operational. The Squad is sent into the subway to confront Enchantress directly.

Bar scene. Mid-mission, on the way to the subway, the Squad stops at an abandoned bar to regroup. The bar scene is the film's emotional center. Diablo confesses what put him in Belle Reve — he had not just killed his wife and children; he had used his pyrokinetic powers in a domestic-violence flare-up and incinerated them all in his own kitchen. He has been refusing to use his powers ever since. He drinks at the bar. The squad sits with him. Croc explains his birth as a regressive-evolution mutation. Boomerang explains he's just an asshole. Harley does a karaoke version of a Bee Gees song. Deadshot talks about his daughter Zoe. The Squad, just for the duration of the bar visit, is a family.

Subway battle. They descend into the Midway City subway tunnels. Enchantress's Eyes of the Adversary weapon — a massive twisting tower of supernatural mist generating mind-control hex-energy across central Midway — is operational at the subway hub. Incubus, Enchantress's witch-brother, is guarding the lower levels. He's roughly the size of a city bus and made of writhing black-flame appendages. The squad attacks him. Flag's Navy SEAL backup team sets explosives under Incubus's position. Diablo finally unleashes his full pyrokinetic powers for the first time in years — transforming into a thirty-foot flame demon, his body wreathed in fire, his eyes glowing red. Diablo grabs Incubus in a massive flame embrace. Flag detonates the explosives below them. Both Diablo and Incubus are incinerated in a single explosion. Diablo dies redemptively, saving his squad and the city.

Enchantress's defeat. Without Incubus, Enchantress is weakened. The Squad confronts her in the subway's central chamber. Harley, exhausted but cunning, tells Enchantress she wants to leave the squad and join her witch coven. She walks toward Enchantress with her hand outstretched, kneeling at her feet, asking to be inducted. Enchantress reaches down to enchant her. At the exact moment of physical touch, Harley pulls a hidden blade from her sleeve and cuts a small hole in Enchantress's chest where her stolen heart had been. Flag — who has been carrying Enchantress's heart in a sealed case for the entire mission — crushes the heart with his bare hand. Enchantress disintegrates back into her host body. Dr. June Moone collapses unconscious on the subway floor. The Eyes of the Adversary weapon dissolves. The Midway City population reverts. The mission is complete.

Aftermath. Waller is rescued. The Squad is returned to Belle Reve Federal Prison. Most receive sentence reductions and access to small comforts (Croc gets cable TV in his cell, Deadshot gets supervisizd visits with his daughter Zoe, Harley gets an espresso machine in her cell). Boomerang, who tried to abandon the mission twice, gets no reduction and stays at Belle Reve indefinitely. Diablo is buried with full honors. Joker, alive after his helicopter crash (offscreen), eventually orchestrates Harley's prison breakout in the post-credits scene of Suicide Squad's Director's Cut.

Mid-credits. Amanda Waller is on a private flight from D.C. to her ARGUS office. Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) sits in the seat across from her. They've been negotiating for weeks. Wayne offers her protection from a Senate inquiry into the Task Force X program in exchange for Waller's classified files on the metahuman threats — specifically the files on Aquaman, the Flash, and the still-unidentified "Cyborg" cybernetic case. Waller hands him the files. Wayne studies them. He plans to assemble his own metahuman team — the Justice League — to deal with metahuman threats outside Waller's coercive ARGUS framework. This is the same Justice League we see formed in Justice League (2017) a year later. Wayne walks off the plane with the files. Waller smiles. "You don't have to threaten me. I have a few favors to ask of you too." Cut to credits.