Headscratchers / West Side Story (2021)

• In this version, Tony isn't part of the war council that decides where the rumble is gonna happen. So, how does he know where it is?
  • He probably just had a gut feeling the rumble was going to be at the salt shed, as it's implied the Jets have fought there before.
• How come the Jets never get arrested for their actions? During the prologue the Jets shoplift (they steal paintbrushes from one of the stores) and then vandalize the Puerto Rico mural with paint. After the police break up the fight, Krupke tells the Sharks to call the police next time, but they don't bother arresting the Jets. This could be due to racism, but it's a plot point that Tony had previously went to juvie upstate for getting in a fight, yet the aforementioned vandalism and some of the Jets (Diesel, Balkan, Baby John, Big Deal, A-Rab, Mouthpiece, and Snowboy) trash the police station during "Gee, Officer Krupke," which Krupke himself sees happen.
  • This version of Krupke is shown to be reluctant to actually send any of the gang members to jail because he recognizes they're troubled teenagers and doesn't want their lives to be ruined. That's why he's always trying to plead with both sides.
  • Most of their crimes seem to be petty, like shoplifting and loitering. Today larceny carries a hefty fine and potentially a year in jail, but it might have been more easily overlooked in the 50s. Tony quite clearly committed attempted murder against the kid in the Egyptian Kings, and that would have been worth sending him upstate.
    • Most of their crimes are petty, but vandalism isn't. Schrank outright tells the Jets that if they reveal who attacked Baby John, he'll book (arrest) them, but the Jets keep quiet so their actions don't get brought up too. Would any of their crimes warrant being sent upstate to prison? Probably not, but at the very least they ought to be arrested or charged even if they aren't convicted. The only time any of them are in a police station is when they've been brought in for information on the rumble.
  • The entire film has an Extremely Short Timespan, covering just a day or two at most. The police just see the aftermath of a fight, in which all parties refuse to give any information they can use to justify an arrest. Given just how many people were involved and the most criminal thing is someone putting a nail through Baby John's ear (and he won't say who did it), they can't feasibly throw every single one of them in the jail. So perhaps on that particular day they decided to just pick their battles and keep an eye out for anything potentially criminal happening next - as Schrank is giving his cops a good talk about the rumble, and they seem to be pretty on it considering they arrive at the scene moments after it's over.
• If Tony wanted to get rid of the gun so badly during "Cool," then why wouldn't he just throw it into the water?
  • He wasn't just trying to keep the gun away from Riff. He was trying to get him to call off the rumble. If he just threw the gun into the river, best case, Riff would beat the crap out of Tony for what he saw as a betrayal. Tony's whole thing in "Cool" seems to be to exhaust Riff, and get him to "play it cool."
    • At a certain point, his desire shifts into getting the gun out of their hands when it becomes clear that they're not going to call off the rumble. Throwing away the gun would have pissed off Riff, but it would deny the Jets a lethal weapon.
• Both the Jets and Sharks "lay low" after the rumble in order to avoid arrest (the Jets hide at Doc's while some of the Sharks hide out at the gym) but the police know who all the members of both gangs are, and Riff and Bernardo's bodies are surrounded by dozens of other weapons. Tony at least is smart enough to try and leave town, but most of the Jets are visibly injured from the rumble, so how do they expect to get away with it?
  • The police can't actually prove which gang members were there or not. The gangs could just claim Riff and Bernardo went there alone with various weapons to choose from and their own injuries came from somewhere else. While the police wouldn't be fooled by it, their case is still largely circumstantial and it's not enough for the courts to actually indict the gang members.
• Why does Valentina let the Jets hide out at the shop after the rumble? Based on her conversation with Riff earlier in the film, she thinks the Jets are a bad influence on Tony and makes Riff leave.
  • Adding to the OP, when Riff and the Jets roll out in the prologue, a number of them emerge from Doc's, having been waiting there until it was go time.
  • Valentina specifically banned Riff from her store because he was always shoplifting. Maybe she didn't do the same to the other Jets because they actually had the decency to pay her.
  • On the other hand, why do the Jets think it's a good idea to all hide out together? Yes, there is safety in numbers and Anybodys is out on the streets doing recon, but if they're trying to avoid arrest, it seems like a bad idea to have every single Jet (most of whom are still covered in blood or bruises) sitting in the main room of a member's place of employment. The Sharks at least know this since what little we see of them after the rumble isn't of the collective group (mainly just Chino and the four members who go to the gym to pray for Bernardo).
  • They're all young and idiotic, as well as still reeling from watching their leader get stabbed to death. Possibly they're also there together to protect Tony. If the cops come to Doc's looking for him, they can hold them off long enough for him to get away.
• Tony tries to tell Riff that his parole officer told him not to go out at night as why he can't go to the dance. Yet, he ends up going and is confronted by Krupke, who in all likelihood knows about his parole even if he isn't Tony's officer.
  • Either Tony was lying and just needed a good excuse to tell Riff why he couldn't go or what he said was true, but Krupke was willing to let it slide as long as he didn't cause any trouble.
  • Well perhaps the parole officer was notified and wanted to call Tony in for a meeting, but couldn't reach him the next day since he'd taken the subway with Maria. Maybe they called Valentina as his boss while he was out, and the message wasn't passed on because he was suddenly set on trying to stop the rumble and then he becomes a criminal.
  • And maybe Krupke took note of how Tony was actively trying to be polite to Bernardo and avoided violence even when he was provoked - and decided not to notify the parole officer because at least one of the Jets seemed to be acting sensible.
  • It might’ve not be as bad as Tony makes it. Tony actually thought he had to work that night and brought up his parole as an excuse to skip the dance. To not get involved with the jets. But Valentina after being involved in his musical number and seeing the floor looking almost new, decided to give Tony a night off for the dance, him going for fun. Later he travels to a church quite further than the gym and he isn’t seen by a cop so as long as Tony can behave himself and has permission from Valentina or he’s off the clock he’s free to an extent.