History Headscratchers / JohnWick

** It's possible that, like many businessmen, most of Viggo's money is tied up in investments. Two million dollars might very well have been all the cash he had available on such short notice (upping the contract to four million would then have required either borrowing the cash or quickly selling off some of his investments, costing him more in the long run).

* Why does Aurelio flip out and punch Iosef and tell him to take the car and get as far away from him as possible when he asks for the Plate change instead of just saying "Yeah sure come back in a few hours" then just give the car back to John when he showed up a little while later? They're friends, so it's not like John's gonna walk in and kill him and his work crew on the spot before letting him explain himself. This wouldn't completely diffuse the situation as obviously John would still want payback and go after Iosef but it would save him alot of trouble getting the car back later on and might even pacify John if slightly.

* I always question why Avi doesn't try to run off when he was the last henchmen left. I know it would be cowardly, but Avi was scared by that point, andd John is after Viggo, not Avi.

** Also consider that the Mook might have been concerned about friendly fire and wanted to check his target. Whereas John knows that anyone moving was a target.

** Maybe they had spys or followed him themselves.

** They likely just traced his license plate number and used connections in law enforcement to find his address.

*** Even setting aside the possibility of John violating the rules of the Continental (which ''nobody'' thought he would do) Viggo wants this over with quickly, because if John is running around loose, he's going to cause trouble for Viggo, as we see him do. He wants John dead, sure, but he wants to make sure there's a minimum of impact to his operations and he knows what John's capable of, especially after John demolishes the hit team Avi sends. By using his own son as bait, he forces John to come to him and gets to pick the battleground and stack the deck with as many guns as he can fit in the Red Circle, as well as human shields in the civilians.

* John keeps forgetting that he had a sidearm! In the first movie, he spent a full minute fighting against one of Viggo's EliteMook in the Red Circle before being thrown off to the first floor and realizing he had a pistol tucked behind his shirt. While in chapter two, he fought off like 5 thugs barehanded, and only resorts to his gun once the big guy comes, why ?

* John keeps forgetting that he had a sidearm ! In the first movie,he spent a full minute fighting against one of Viggo's EliteMook in the Red Circle before being thrown off to the first floor and realizing he had a pistol tucked behind his shirt. While in chapter two, he fought off like 5 thugs barehanded, and only resorts to his gun once the big guy comes, why ?

*** This seems the most likely answer, everyone always says that it's against the rules to conduct business, but John's on a purely personal vendetta. He's not accepting money for it, he's not doing it as a favor for anyone, it's purely a one-on-one grudge and thus exempt from the usual rules. Besides, John clearly doesn't care that much if he lives or dies as long as he gets to extract his vengeance, and his old boss has probably picked up on that... John would probably have considered it a completely fair trade to get killed himself once he'd offed Iosef.
** Perhaps Winston refused to accommodate him for the same reason Aurelio refused to work on the car. He most certainly doesn't want to cross John or just have him shoot out his hotel.
** This comes up as a plot point in the second film when Santino hides in the New York Continental hotel to escape John. It's extremely expensive to hide in a Continental hotel for a prolonged period, since you have to pay coins for everything you purchase and every night you stay. Santino has a ton of coins saved up so he can hide out there for a long period, but he's also extremely desperate. Viggo also has a lot of coins stored up but when they run out Iosef is no longer safe, and the moment he leaves John will be waiting for him to do so and will have his location and be ready to attack. Better to hide Iosef somewhere that John can't find him than rely on the temporary lodgings of the Continental.
** Also unlike Santino, Viggo can't just wait it out with a pissed off Wick in New York, as he took down his criminal empire while looking for Iosef. Leaving his son there would just make Wick more vicious on Viggo and Iosef probably doesn't have coins of his own.

*** To make matter worse, Iosef unlike Santino has no self control, respect for others and extremely spoiled. During his stay at the Red Circle, he was treating his house arrest more like a vacation to Kuril's irritation. All it'd take would be a good looking female assassin to lure him to her room for sex and booze and he would have been dead of an overdose long before Wick got a chance to shoot him dead. Or a fight taken out that goes ''poorly'' for Iosef.

** My theory is that he wanted Iosef to fully appreciate how frightening and hopeless his situation was before administering the kill.
*** This makes more sense when you consider this fact: John was frightened and helpless when Iosef and his goons attacked him, killed Daisy and then took his car. At that moment, when John had Iosef dead to rights in the basement of the Red Circle, he could have wanted to make sure that Iosef felt the exact same way before taking him out. This would also account why John proceeded to take everyone out at the warehouse before killing Iosef: not only was it for tactical purposes, he wanted Iosef to feel that fright and helplessness he felt before he finally killed him.
** We see multiple people talking with John, telling him how they've never seen him this emotionally demonstrative or this vulnerable. He's emotionally involved in this hunt, and that, plus his multiple-year retirement seems to throw him off his game enough he didn't immediately pull the trigger. After that, I figure the guy he had pinned to the floor started struggling, by which time Iosef was already in motion.
** During their last confrontation, John puts a bullet in Iosef's gut and strolls on over, after taking out the guards with sniper fire and explosives. John wants to make an impression before the end.
** Actually, it wasn't so much that the guy on the ground was struggling, so much as John wanted to execute him [[DeathGlare without breaking eye contact with Iosef]].

*** Exactly. John left more than five years previously, when Viggo was ostensibly still a little fish in the pond, and was known to be retired and out of the game. Not only would Viggo probably hesitate to dredge up what he thought was ancient history and refer to a time when his organization was weak (thus preventing Iosef from knowing anything about John), the sheer odds that ''the one guy Iosef would decide to mess with'' would be John Wick were so astronomical that Viggo actually mentioned it during that first one-sided phone call he had with John. Plus, even if Iosef did ever hear about this guy, would Viggo have a picture of him up on the wall with the caption "Run like Hell"? Even if he knew about John, Iosef wouldn't know what he looked like.
** Iosef is the guy who stole a random guy's car on a whim, killed that man's dog for making noise, and after actually being told who Wick is decided to laugh it up at a night club. Even if Iosef were told in advance it's extremely unlikely he'd have bothered to learn/remember John's face or address. And even if he did he'd probably write him off as a washed up retiree.
** Viggo might have mentioned it casually during some conversations, just never had an extensive conversation about him because he was just a former employee in the end, however good, and Iosef doesn't look like he actually had any role in the organization, he just enjoyed the perks of being Viggo's son. Also, they don't look like they have a very close relationship, so I also guess they don't really talk very much (Viggo's disappointed by his son at the very least).

** Viggo did say John wasn't actually the 'Boogeyman' but what you sent to kill it! Maybe Viggo felt that naming John after what he considered the scariest thing in Russian fairy tales was fitting.

** While the above was probably meant as a joke, since the cop seems to know John personally and by reputation, it's entirely possible that, once he heard WHERE the ruckus was, he responded on the double to keep the whole thing from getting even worse.

** The first film shows the Underworld is fairly closely connected; despite John retiring and moving away from New York City, several characters (Marcus, Viggo, Aurelio) are aware of his wife's death and offer their condolences. Maybe they know about his car through the same grapevine.

** FaceDeathWithDignity, she can try running but she'll die, and we don't know yet how ruthless the Continental can be if you are excommunicated and have something they can use as leverage.

*** Iosef may have had a minor role in his father's day to day business. When they stole the car, they apparently were heading back from some gang-related business in Atlantic City.

* So in Chapter 2, John shoots Santino at the Continental. Aside from the drama of John being excommunicado... why the hell didn't John just physically drag Santino out of the building and shoot him outside? Winston is clearly okay with a little LoopholeAbuse and very much understands why John is as angry as he is, so this would seem to be the more obvious way to go.
** If he dragged Santino outside to do the deed, it might have become purely a High Table matter, at which point John would have been marked for death twice over before the day was out. However, killing him in the Continental put him under Winston's jurisdiction, at which point Winston could give Wick an actual grace period as well as advanced warning for his precise consequences. In a sense, there was no real out for John in this situation, so it was a choice between putting himself to Winston's judgment or the High Table's.
** Physically removing Santino from the hotel is just a slightly more complex way of killing him on Continental grounds, which is a massive no-no, even for someone as regarded as John. If you could get away with it by doing it in that manner, especially in a way that would be clearly visible to everyone else staying in the hotel, then whatever value the Continental's SacredHospitality once held is gone.

* If John Wick is supposed to be retired for "five and change" years, how the hell does everyone recognize his car the instant they lay eyes on it? Is it really the only completely original '69 Mustang rolling around in the area? And when John moved from New York to New Jersey for his retirement, he had to change the plates, removing this as an identifier even if anyone could remember them that long after learning they'd no longer see it around. This is, of course, assuming the second movie's implication that he got the car after retirement is incorrect.
** The first film shows the Underworld is fairly closely connected; despite John retiring and moving away from NYC, several characters are aware of his wife's death and offer their condolences. Maybe they know about his car through the same grapevine.

* How does Winston giving John a marker at the end of Chapter 2 work? If John is excommunicado, doesn't that mean that he is cut off from all Continental "services", including, presumably, having his markers honored? Or alternatively, if the markers still work, then can't John give Winston the marker and force him to lift the excommunicado status?
** It's probably less of a technical marker and more of a promise. Winston cannot lift excommunicado - doing so just doesn't happen and would invalidate the Continental's SacredHospitality. The Marker is probably for a lesser favor, or even an excuse for another friend or Continental agent to shelter John if need be. "I'd kick him out, but he cashed in a marker, you know how it goes. Wink-wink."
** I would assume that the Markers aren't a Continental thing. Just something the Continental was involved in. Winston specifically says at one point about having to ask the High Table, and the High Table wouldn't allow what he was asking. The High Table apparently has more control over Markers than the Continental. It was also pointed out that Markers must be paid under any circumstances. The High Table wouldn't cancel a marker asking to murder a member of the High Table.
** Perhaps it's the marker Santino called in? Might help John explain to the High Table ''why'' he killed Santino, if anyone gives him the chance.
** The marker could also be blank, so that John can buy some help if he can find a willing benefactor.
** A third possibility is that it's a marker that Winston owed to Wick, and the reason for the grace period and lack of instant death.
** I think we're perhaps overthinking this a little. Winston presumably cannot overrule the excommunicado, but he ''can'' grant John a simple favour out of personal regard. He's probably not ''supposed'' to, but dash it all, he likes and sympathises with the guy, so despite everything is willing to grant him some small assistance. Besides which, doing so puts John into Winston's personal debt which, given John's skills, could be a very useful thing indeed for Winston.
** It has been revealed in the sequel that the marker was not Winston's. He was holding a marker for John that John would cash in. It was someone else's marker that owed John a favor.
** You misunderstand, I think. The one Winston gave him, he holds onto. The one Wick cashes in, he grabs from the library.

** If anything, it makes the later scene where Viggo kill him even more hypocritical for two reasons. First, he blames Marcus for not killing John despite knowing Marcus and John had a very close relationship. So he's blaming Marcus for the exact thing he's doing (i.e protecting someone close to him). Second, Viggo sold out Iosef to John so he could escape John's wrath, so by his vengeful logic he should first and foremost blame himself for his son's death. Marcus was at best a indirect accomplice.

** Maybe they had spys or followed him themselves.