Suicide Squad

About the film

Contains story spoilers.

Suicide Squad begins in a world unsettled by Superman’s death, where officials fear another superpowered figure could appear without warning. Intelligence officer Amanda Waller argues for a deniable unit made up of imprisoned criminals with unusual skills. She selects them from Belle Reve penitentiary and controls them with nanite charges implanted in their necks, remotely detonated if they disobey or run. Their promised reward is reduced sentences, but the arrangement makes clear that Waller sees them as a tool, not a family.

The film introduces recruits through their pasts and their reasons for taking the deal. Floyd Lawton, Deadshot, is a professional marksman who wants to return to his daughter. Harley Quinn is a former psychiatrist whose relationship with the Joker has drawn her into crime. Captain Boomerang is an opportunistic thief, while El Diablo has fire-based powers he avoids using after losing control and killing his family. Killer Croc is feared for his altered appearance, and Slipknot believes his climbing skill can get him out. Colonel Rick Flag leads them in the field, accompanied by Katana and her sword, which contains her husband’s spirit.

Waller’s plan has a hidden complication. Archaeologist June Moone is possessed by the ancient witch Enchantress, and Waller keeps the witch under control by holding her magical heart. June is also Flag’s partner, a connection he conceals from the squad. Enchantress takes advantage of the arrangement and unleashes destruction in Midway City. She transforms civilians into controlled monsters and summons her brother Incubus, aiming to create a weapon that can devastate humanity. The government sends Task Force X into the city before the operation is fully understood. The squad’s arrival exposes how little control Waller actually has. Their helicopter is shot down, forcing the team to continue on foot through streets full of enemies. Boomerang persuades Slipknot that the neck bombs are a bluff; when Slipknot attempts to escape, Flag detonates his charge, proving the threat is real. The team fights upward through a building toward an extraction point, only to learn that their supposed target is Waller herself. Their mission has become a rescue of the person who has kept them under threat.

The Joker’s attempt to recover Harley is a separate strand from the city battle. He attacks the extraction, disables Harley’s bomb and helps her escape, but his helicopter is shot down by Waller. Harley survives and rejoins the squad, believing Joker is dead. Enchantress captures Waller to reclaim her heart, while Deadshot discovers files revealing Flag’s relationship with June. The squad walks away from its assignment and shares a drink in an abandoned bar. There, El Diablo describes the family he killed when his power ran out of control. Flag releases them from orders, but they choose to return because they can still save the city.

In the final fight, the squad attacks Enchantress while Flag's SEAL team and Killer Croc carry explosives beneath the subway toward Incubus. El Diablo unleashes his fire to hold the witch's brother in place, sacrificing himself when the bomb kills Incubus. Enchantress offers the others what they most want, and Harley feigns agreement long enough to cut out her heart. The team destroys the witch's weapon with explosives that Deadshot triggers. Flag then crushes the heart when Enchantress refuses to free June, and June survives. The victory requires several different abilities working together; neither Waller's leverage nor one exceptionally powerful recruit can solve the disaster alone.

Waller reduces the surviving prisoners’ sentences and grants selected comforts, although they return to custody; Boomerang remains confined without the rewards the others requested. Harley is later rescued from Belle Reve by the still-living Joker. In a mid-credits meeting, Bruce Wayne offers to shield Waller from legal consequences in exchange for information about other metahumans, while warning her to close Task Force X or he and his allies will do it. The unit’s future remains an uneasy bargain between a government that wants deniable force and criminals who have briefly found reasons to act for one another.

Deadshot’s scenes with his daughter give the film a second measure of what the collars are designed to deny. He is not trying to become a public hero; he wants a chance to return to a child who still sees him as a father. Harley’s remembered relationship with the Joker appears in flashes that make devotion and coercion difficult to disentangle, while Flag’s secret connection to June complicates his authority over the squad. These aims do not erase the harm each has caused, but they explain why a shortened sentence works as leverage. When the team turns back toward the city after Flag releases them, their choice gains weight precisely because no one has made them trustworthy in advance.

David Ayer shapes the ensemble through fast character introductions, music cues and contrasting looks: Belle Reve’s institutional restraint gives way to the saturated lights, smoke and ruined streets of Midway City. The team’s abilities become tactical differences—Deadshot’s aim, Croc’s strength, Boomerang’s distractions, El Diablo’s fire—rather than one shared power system. Will Smith gives Deadshot a measured professional bearing, while Margot Robbie makes Harley’s volatility comic and unsettling. The bar scene slows the pace so the group can choose its next action; the climax makes cooperation a decision rather than an automatic consequence of their collars.