10 Genre Directors Who Stepped Out Of Their Field (And Failed)

Neil LaBute was one of those cases of a playwright whose work hit at just the right time; his bitter, pitch-black comic tone, however misogynistic, was outside-the-box enough for independent studios to jump on his screenplays. For a while, the ruse worked, no one seemed to notice the misogyny as it was masked in what appeared to be satire.

But the recurring theme started to become troubling, particularly when it was explicit in mainstream fare like The Wicker Man remakre or mixed in with the racially tone-deaf Lakeview Terrace. But LaBute would attempt one more atonement before further indulging his worst impulses.

Chris Rock is a thoroughly talented, inciteful comedian, but his acting prowess leaves much to be desired and his film choices range from Adam Sandler vacations to failed-but-interesting attempts to remake foreign films.

Of those attempts, Death At A Funeral is far from the worst, with Roger Ebert even hailing it as better than Frank Oz' first adaptation of Dean Craig's play. It's, at best, a mild success.

But none of what makes Death work is LaBute's doing, the film is helped immensely by a clever script and earnest turns from a collection of great character actors. It wasn't enough to buy him out of director jail for his last two flops, and LaBute stuck to his own work and Netflix's The I-Land, an astoundingly stupid Lost clone that - you guessed it - hates women.