Neil LaBute

Neil N LaBute born March 19 1963 is an American playwright film director and screenwriter He is best known for a play that he wrote and later adapted for film In the Company of Men 1997 which won awards from the Sundance Film Festival the Independent Spirit Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle LaBute created the TV series Billy Billie writing and directing all of the episodes He is also the creator of the TV series Van Helsing Critics have responded to his plays as having a misanthropic tone Rob WeinertKendt in The Village Voice referred to LaBute as American theaters reigning misanthrope The New York Times said that critics labeled him a misanthrope on the release of his film Your Friends Neighbors because of the films strong misanthropic plot and characters Britains Independent newspaper in May 2008 dubbed him Americas misanthrope par excellence Citing the misanthropic tone of the plot in the films In the Company of Men Your Friends Neighbors and The Shape of Things film critic Daniel Kimmel identified a pattern running through LaButes work of being that the unlikeable main antagonists of those three films end up getting away with their lying scheming and misdeeds coming out on top of all the other characters as the real winners of those stories by quoting Neil LaBute is a misanthrope who assumes that only callous and evil people who use and abuse others can survive in this world