John Wick

Not killing Santino wasn’t an option for a peaceful life. John could’ve turned and left Santino alive but he’d still be the target of an international manhunt and eventually run out of coins and so be exiled from Continental resources anyway.

Neither was becoming a slave to The One Above The Table a chance for peace. John would now be their personal assassin, and for all he knows they’ll send him on a suicide mission just to close off loose ends.

Heck, even all the way back in the first film John sitting in his house and not chasing Iosef would’ve resulted in Viggo still sending assassins after him out of fear.

All in all the only choices John had were between getting the hammer or getting a really big hammer. What he had left to him was the choice to accept the reality of the situation and fight against that, rather than fighting for an increasingly vain hope that he could actually get out.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Aug 14th 2023 at 12:01:22 PM

How Chapter 2 goes is that, since the events of the first film mean John is unretired, Santino calls in a marker requiring John to do a hit for them. If John refuses the marker, a death sentence will be put on their head. So John performs the hit ... and Santino puts a bounty out on John anyway, because You Have Outlived Your Usefulness.

As long as Santino was chilling out at the Continental, an endless stream of assassins would keep coming after John. Of course, killing Santino in the Continental gets a bigger bounty put on John's head, and the assassins keep on coming, but at no point was there ever an opportunity to not be endlessly pursued to their death.

Edited by RavenWilder on Aug 14th 2023 at 11:59:28 AM

I mean, the very obvious thing to do is to go back to the High Table, et. al. who run this massive league of assassins and say 'he broke our deal, he was the one who called in his marker to get me to kill his sister and is now trying to kill me to silence me.'

There are presumably rules against exactly that? If not, I don't understand how this society functions...at all.

Santino's power base is basically gone. He's got money, but all his allies are dead. All John has to do is convince the High Table that Santino broke their rules, or that Santino is simply worthless to them at this point, or convince his fellow assassins not to go after him, as they'll die horribly if they do. What he had to avoid was expanding his enemy list and turning his death into a matter of honor...and he did both.

That is very much not John having a choice "between 'live a life of peace' and 'kill someone' he kills someone."

Like yes, I wondered at the time and put a headscratcher on how Satino was allowed to put a contract on an assassin for performing an assassination but the film does not establish John as having out he doesn't use, even if we think he should have had one.

Edited by dcutter2 on Aug 14th 2023 at 8:15:56 PM

I mean, go looking for a solution that doesn't get everyone to try to kill you in one hour...is a choice necessary to live a life of peace. It doesn't get him there immediately, but it's a necessary first step.

Likewise, he could have called Iosef and said 'your son insulted me and killed my dog and stole my car. Have him apologize, return my car and I will forgive him and you.' He didn't do that, because that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to kill him, which is understandable, but inconsistent with the goal of living a life of peace.

It's not that John wants to live a life of violence, he's not Slade, it's that he simply never thinks of any plan that would allow him to stop. His solution to every problem is 'kill people' and that just doesn't work. Though, I guess, in 3 his plan is, 'talk to the big cheese and make a deal that I'm not going to keep.'

I don’t think Viggo would’ve believed him if John had said all he wanted was an apology. He had assassins sent to John’s house on account of a grieving man hanging up during a phone call. Likewise Santino could claim he ordered a hit on John because John’s clearly going to kill him after the job is done; Winston even encourages John to get revenge post-job. Overall either John’s going to kill somebody or somebody will assume he will and hunt him anyway, so he doesn’t have an out.

Eh...they're generally pretty big on giving and keeping your word. Presumably they have some mechanism for binding agreements?

To be fair, part of John Wick 2 and 3 was the revelation that SHOCK the criminal conspiracy's leaders are full of Loophole Abuse and I Lied.

The underworld isn’t designed to give people an out. It’s designed to keep people in servitude forever. John got lucky once, and the High Table really doesn’t want him to get such a chance again. Recall that they punished the Director, one of their own, and the Bowery King, all for the crime of aiding John within entirely legal means. If they can find a way to screw him over with their deals, they will. Because if he gets out, other people think they can get out and that undermines their entire business.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Aug 14th 2023 at 1:06:52 AM

Well John was allowed to leave and drop all of his markers.

But he CAME BACK.

And that means all of the markers are active again.

Overall, while I don't hate the ending of 4, I don't like it either. Basic issue is that John Wick's "victory" over the High Table feels largely...ceremonial? Like, if John Wick had been killed by goon #387 that would have mostly the same practical consequences.

Now with the question of bringing down the High Table:

I'd argue it can be done, just not by John Wick alone. What I assumed would happen is that a few other gangs would decide the High Table is too exploitative and fight against it, causing it to crumble.

I don't think we know enough about how this world works to figure out how to destroy it. But I strongly agree with you that John Wick alone was never going to be enough and he knew that, which makes his almost total failure to leverage his hilariously over-the-top number of connections within this world another sign that this isn't a plan, it's just an elaborate suicide-by-creepy-underworld-cop.

I mean, in Chapter 3, John's goal isn't to kill anyone, but to call in every favor they have to appeal their case to the highest authority. Still kills a lot of people, but only because the appeal process doesn't put a hold on everyone trying to kill you.

Sure, but what was the theory there? It was that the leader of the creepy assassin council would give him another 'impossible task' so he could get himself un-excommunicated. That task was always going to be killing someone. That's literally the only thing he's qualified to do. He was killing people to get to the guy who was going to tell him to kill someone, so that he could...go back to being just a guy living under the High Table (because he's no longer out).

He gets that deal, agrees to it, then doesn't do it.

Edited by ECD on Aug 14th 2023 at 5:25:01 AM

I will said john managing to topple the high table is the kind of thing that probably would go against the story, it would make him pretty much superman and is the kind of stuff that would drag the whole thing for a lot of movies.

John was good but he cant beat the system

That's only if he does that alone. But he's not alone.

It felt odd that Chapter 4 directly brings up the potential for revolution and even features Liberty Leading The People but doesn't follow up on that. There's a thematic throughline across the films that bonds through friendship are stronger than bonds by contract, which should've been a key ideal in toppling the High Table.

I don't think people we againist the high table as a system.They were more against people within it.Most of the people that helped John only did so after he use a loophole within the rules.

In fact giving how many times the phase 'Without rules we become animals..' Gets repeated,the majority of people probably see the high table as a way to themselves in check.

Edited by DeanCole on Aug 15th 2023 at 12:36:49 PM

I'm a relative newcomer, but yeah, the point is that John will always be forced back in until he either makes it so the High Table will never call him back or dies. The fourth ends with him dead, but right before that, he's freed himself and a few others from the wrath of either the High Table or the Marquis and he gets to lay down and pass away while longingly thinking of his late wife. It's poetic to who he is certainly.

While a system of rules is necessary, John is condemned because he broke the rules to deal with someone like Santino who used and bent them and yet was still protected by them. Then the High Table in their desperation to have John finished off delegated the task to the Marquis—who they knew would do a lot of damage and vicious stuff while bending the rules in the process. So it sends a mixed message.

The High Table's rules are black and white and not gray. They don't leave room for improvement or exceptions.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Aug 15th 2023 at 10:24:21 AM

While John has a lot of connections, those connections tend to fall into two camps: those who are very reluctant to offer John any help, or those who gladly give John their assistance ... and are killed shortly afterwards.

Katia's a notable exception: she forces him into a deadly situation in which she'll also agree to help him for a price. Also, the Bowery King is "I don't like you, but I dislike them more" and Caine is "you're my friend, but I have no choice". With Cassian, he's understanding that Santino put John in the position he's in while also wanting to avenge his friend and employer too.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Aug 15th 2023 at 10:55:53 AM

I mean the High Table is "just" the mafias of the world gathered together despite their self-mythologizing.

It shouldn't be THAT hard to bring them down through infighting.

IMO it would tend to be a pretty unstable organization by nature.

Indeed, the movies have never actually shown it to be stable. The 3rd film is also about how their "Honor among thieves" stuff is bullshit as they begin breaking their own rules left and right.

Something they bring up about the High Table as well is that any of their members die, someone's already posed to take their place, as was the case with Santino using the blood oath—a loophole to circumvent the rules—to get John to kill Gianna and he as her brother could take her place on the High Table and it'd be perfectly acceptable. John would've easily gotten out after the first film and stayed out after taking out both Iosef and Viggo—and getting his car back too—if not for Santino dragging him into it and as assurance to himself that the loose ends were tied, using his new power to try to have John killed so that he could "avenge" his sister. Then that in turn led to John killing him and making himself a target for the next two movies.

While John killing Santino was giving him the karma he deserved, he still in the eyes of the High Table violated a rule that Santino hid behind; exploited and abused in the process too—no business in the Continental—and thus, the rules failed John in that situation due to how complicated it was. Santino violated the spirit of the rules while not going against the rules themselves. John acted in the spirit of them and yet the High Table wanted to punish him for breaking them to do so.

Hardly seems fair when they were designed with fairness in mind and making everyone equal. The High Table also was afraid of their power being questioned too and someone as skilled as John showing he had the willingness to break any of them at any time—especially when he broke one of the golden ones—was a threat to them. Their willingness to overlook Gianna's death just because of the blood oath—and put the blame on John for doing it rather than Santino for forcing him into it—also shows how askew their priorities are too—and makes them Obstructive Bureaucrats in the process as well.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Aug 15th 2023 at 2:03:22 AM

I'll say a key with the High Table is that, from what we see, it's rather difficult (not impossible, but quite difficult) to actually use rules to protect yourselves from them. They always have some means to skirt the principle of a thing to do what they want to.