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!
After rising through the ranks of her male-dominated profession, idealistic FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) receives a top assignment. Recruited by mysterious government official Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), Kate joins a task force for the escalating war against drugs. Led by the intense and shadowy Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), the team travels back-and-forth across the U.S.-Mexican border, using one cartel boss (Bernardo Saracino) to flush out a bigger one (Julio Cesar Cedillo).
SPOILERS AHEAD
Sicario Plot Summary and Synopsis
In Chandler, Arizona, FBI agents Kate Macer and Reggie Wayne lead a raid on a suspected Sonora Cartel safe house where they discover dozens of decaying corpses and a booby trap which kills two police officers. Following the raid, Kate’s boss recommends her for a Department of Justice and Department of Defense joint task force overseen by CIA officer Matt Graver and the secretive Alejandro Gillick.
Assured that the task force has been set up to apprehend Sonora Cartel lieutenant Manuel Díaz and to bring to justice those responsible for the safe-house incident, Kate joins the operation.
The team, which includes Delta Force operators, US Marshals and CIA personnel, travel to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, to extradite Díaz’s brother and henchman Guillermo Díaz. Kate is left shocked when the team ruthlessly kill cartel gunmen at the US-Mexico border. Back in the U.S., Alejandro learns from torturing Guillermo that the cartel use a tunnel near Nogales, Sonora to smuggle drugs into the United States.
Meanwhile a disillusioned Kate forces Matt, alongside Reggie, to reveal that the mission is not to apprehend Díaz but to disrupt his drug operations so much he will be summoned back to Mexico by his boss, Fausto Alarcón, the elusive Sonora Cartel drug lord. Matt hopes that by following Díaz they can bring Alarcón to justice. An unnerved Kate asks her partner, Reggie, to join her for support.
The task force raid a bank used to launder Diaz’s money. After finding financial evidence in the bank, Kate and Reggie want to start a legal case against Díaz but are ordered to stand down to avoid jeopardizing Matt’s operation.
While commiserating at a bar, Reggie introduces Kate to Ted, a local police friend. Kate and Ted go to her apartment, but as they become intimate, Kate realizes Ted is working with the cartel. In the ensuing struggle, Ted begins strangling Kate before Alejandro suddenly appears and subdues him. Alejandro and Matt reveal they used her as bait, knowing the cartel would target her after her face was seen on the bank’s CCTV.
Alejandro and Matt brutally beat Ted and coerce him into revealing the names of other officers working for Díaz.
After the team learns that Díaz has been recalled to Mexico, they prepare to raid the cartel tunnel near Nogales. Matt reveals to Kate and Reggie that their involvement is just a technical necessity, as the CIA may only legally operate on American soil while working with federal law enforcement.
An angry Reggie tells Kate that they should leave but she insists on joining the raid to learn about the mission’s real purpose. As a gunfight with cartel gunmen begins, Kate follows Alejandro into Mexico. She sees him abduct Silvio, a Mexican police officer working as one of Díaz’s drug mules. Kate tries to arrest Alejandro but he shoots her in her bulletproof vest before driving away with Silvio at gunpoint. Back on the American side of the border, Kate confronts Matt, who explains the mission is just part of a wider operation to create a single cartel which the U.S. can more easily control.
Alejandro, a lawyer who worked for the Medellín Cartel in Colombia, was hired to assassinate Diaz’s boss, Alarcón because he was responsible for ordering the murder of Alejandro’s wife and daughter when he was a prosecutor in Juarez.
Silvio is killed by Alejandro after the police officer stops Díaz’s vehicle. Alejandro forces Díaz to drive on to Alarcón’s estate. He then ruthlessly kills Diaz, guards, Alarcón’s wife and two sons, and finally Alarcón.
The next day, Alejandro appears in Kate’s apartment and forces her at gunpoint to sign a statement confirming that the entire operation was legal.
He then suggests she move to someplace quiet where the rule of law still applies, calling the area “a land of wolves”. As he leaves, she aims her pistol at him, but cannot bring herself to pull the trigger.
Sicario Ending
Back in Nogales, Silvio’s widow watches her son’s soccer game, which is briefly interrupted by the sound of distant gunfire.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).