SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!
A youngster helps an American career criminal (Mel Gibson) learn to survive behind the walls of a brutal Mexican prison.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Get the Gringo Plot Summary and Synopsis
The film opens with a getaway driver and his wounded accomplice dressed as clowns fleeing from American police toward the Mexican border.
The driver crashes through the border fence, whereupon he is arrested by corrupt Mexican police officers Vasquez and Romero.
When they find over $2 million in the back seat of the car, they imprison him in El Pueblito prison under false charges, keep the cash for themselves, and cremate his dead accomplice.
As one of the only Americans incarcerated there, the driver becomes known as “the Gringo”. El Pueblito proves surprising, operating more like a small ghetto than a prison. The Gringo quickly manages to work out the prison’s criminal hierarchy and engages in petty thefts and robberies from some of the prison’s less reputable businesses.
One of these thefts is witnessed by an unnamed kid (Kevin Balmore) who is living with his incarcerated mother and is protected by the prison’s criminals. Curious, the Gringo presses him to explain why the criminals protect him, but the Kid refuses.
Later, the Gringo stops the Kid from an ill-fated assassination attempt on Javi, leader of the crime family that runs El Pueblito. After an argument, he learns why the Kid is protected: Javi has a failing liver, and the Kid is the only viable match; Javi has already killed the Kid’s father and harvested his liver.
The Gringo vows to stop the transplant from happening and to help kill Javi. Meanwhile, the Gringo attracts the attention of a United States Consulate employee, who easily identifies him as a career criminal. Unconcerned, the Gringo and the Kid work towards bringing down Javi, and the Gringo grows closer to the Kid’s mother.
The Gringo ingratiates himself to Javi by saving Javi’s brother, Caracas, and revealing the money stolen by Vasquez and Romero. Thugs working for criminal boss Frank Fowler, from whom the Gringo stole the money, have located Vasquez and Romero.
The thugs are torturing the cops to find the location of an additional missing $2 million. Javi’s men show up, kill everyone, and take the money, enraging Fowler, who knows Javi. With the aid of the consulate employee, Fowler sends assassins into El Pueblito to kill Javi and the Gringo.
The resulting shootout results in the Mexican authorities planning a raid on the prison. Knowing time is short, Javi hires the Gringo to kill Fowler and sets up an immediate transplant operation.
In the US, the Gringo, now out of prison, lures Fowler out of hiding by arranging a meeting between him and shipping magnate Thomas Kaufmann. The Gringo pretends he is his ex-partner, Reginald T. Barnes, who had betrayed him, and sets up a meeting between Kaufmann and Fowler, during which he kills Fowler.
When the Gringo locates the Consulate employee, he learns about the imminent transplant operation and rushes to save the Kid, who has unsuccessfully attempted to stab himself in the liver. Using the Consulate employee’s credentials, the Gringo enters the prison during their raid and interrupts Javi’s liver transplant surgery.
Threatening to kill Javi, the Gringo forces Caracas to retrieve the Kid’s mother, who Javi has tortured. Caracas returns with two thugs, but the Gringo kills them both. A nurse helps the Gringo by pretending to capture him. When Caracas relaxes, the Gringo shoots him. They grab the money, and the nurse helps them escape from the prison in an ambulance.
Get the Gringo Ending
In the epilogue, the Gringo recovers the additional missing $2 million hidden in the escape car held in the impound lot, and the Gringo, the Kid, and his mother retire to an idyllic beach.
Kaufmann hires two thugs who exact retribution on the real Reginald Barnes, killing him.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).