A with without an and

I know that the order names appear in the credits is not random. In fact, it's a negotiated part of the contract in some cases, maybe all cases. A particular actor -- or, more likely, that actor's agent -- will get it in writing that he or she gets top billing. I suspect the next few spots are also up for grabs, and then comes everyone else who doesn't have an agent, or at least not a top dollar one.

But proximity to the start of the credits is not always the most sought after condition. Sometimes, you negotiate for the "and" credit, which means you are the last listed in the opening credits before the casting director or the costume designer or whoever comes next.

Before I knew how it worked, though -- and I'm still really only going on what people tell me -- I figured the credits were ordered purely by decreasing importance of the actor in question to the cast of the movie, and in many cases, they end up being one in the same. With one caveat -- there's always an actor at the end with the "and" credit, who comes as a surprise and reshapes our preconceived notions of what we expect from the cast of this movie. His or her name makes you say "Aha!," like "I didn't know this person was going to be in this movie!"

For a long time I have always considered Danny DeVito to be the ultimate example of this. I have no idea why. Maybe twice in my history, maybe close in time to each other, I saw movies where at the end of the credits, it said "And Danny DeVito," which made me say "Aha! I didn't know this person was going to be in this movie!" Or maybe it never happened at all, and DeVito just seemed like he would be that kind of person, who puts an ironic spin on the fairly straightfoward listing of cast members that had come before.

But what if there are two such people?

In my understanding of that, the first gets a "with" and the next gets an "and." Or if there are more than one, however many extra all get a "with" before the last person comes in as the ultimate punchline, as it were, with their "and." Everyone who has ever listed something knows that you can only have one "and," after the penultimate item on the list and before the final item.

This is a long setup for a fairly minor point, but stick with me.

It always strikes me as weird, then, when you get a "with" without an "and," which is what happened in The Hitman's Bodyguard, which I watched on Monday night. It's probably actually the umpteenth time I've seen that phenomenon, but the first where I actually decided to write about it on the blog.

The credits finished up with "with Richard E. Grant" -- a perfect with/and candidate, by the way -- and I thought with an internal squeal of glee, "Who is going to be the 'and'?" My personal guess, out of nowhere, was Glenn Close.

But then it just went on to the casting director or costume designer or whoever comes next.

A with without an and? Unheard of!

Okay, heard of at least umpteen times before. But each time I see it, it offends me, as a grammarian if nothing else.

That's all I wanted to explain, really. This post was 90% setup, as it turns out.

Except that halfway through writing it, I realized the "and" had already been expended earlier in the credits. That's right, they observed the "only one and" rule, they just frontloaded it.

The order of the names in the credits was "Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman, and Salma Hayek." And then all the flotsam and jetsam who made up the rest of the cast before getting to Grant.

Salma Hayek is a good candidate for an "and" credit, given that her role in the film is pretty inessential, and though she appears throughout, she has very little to do. Plus she fits the other description, in that she's a famous name who you wouldn't have necessarily expected to appear in the credits for this movie.

But having her as the fourth name -- negotiated for vanity reasons to be sure, to get her up close to the big boys -- fails in the sense of finishing as a "punchline," as an ironic twist to the succession of no-name actors you've been enduring for the last 30 seconds. In truth, she would have worked better as an "end and" and Grant would have worked better as just a cameo, as he's truly inessential, in just one scene at the start that shows us how Reynolds does his bodyguarding.

Then again, this whole movie is pretty inessential. It's not terrible -- I gave it two stars -- but if I were involved with it, maybe I would have negotiated to have my name removed from it entirely. (Who am I kidding; if I ever made a movie, I'd be thrilled as hell to see my name up there.)

But Hitman's Bodyguard was a huge success, which is why I finally saw it, and which is why there's a sequel due out in August, The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, if coronavirus ever ends.

I guess Hayek will be upgraded from an "and" in that one, given that she's in the actual title.

Maybe Morgan Freeman can pick up the "and" credit, as I really wouldn't have expected to see him in this particular movie.