Gotcha

With trepidation, we checked in on what the irascible Neil LaBute has been doing. And he's still up to his borderline misogynist tricks, but he's having a little fun. Here are his two most recent efforts:

SOME VELVET MORNING (B) - LaBute writes and directs a two-actor stage play, in which Fred (Stanley Tucci) drops in (luggage and all) on a much younger woman, Velvet (Alice Eve), sparking an extended argument between them for about 84 minutes.

You know that LaBute is up to something here, because he gradually peels back truths about the couple's relationship. She has a gorgeous British accent and looks smashing in a red dress. (Eve was about 30 when this was made.) Fred is old enough to be her father, and in fact, we learn early on that Velvet has shared some intimate moments with Fred's married son.

We assume early on that this is (or was) some sort of regular cash transaction between Fred and Velvet, and LaBute doesn't really try to hide the fact for very long. What transpires shows hints of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff?" except much more sedate, more flippantly presented, and bathed in daylight and primary colors.

This is essentially an acting exercise, and if it didn't have the eminently watchable Stanley Tucci in it, it might be torture to sit through. Eve gains momentum as the drama intensifies, and she holds her own with the veteran showman. They find a connection amid the trite coupling of the pathetic older man and the dynamic younger woman. LaBute jerks everyone around -- his actors and his audience -- with his typical emotional sleights of hand.

At the end, LaBute throws in a doozy of a twist. Some will feel hoodwinked and let down by the writer's trick; others will nod and grin, applauding the master dramatist for a well-played turn of the screw. This doesn't amount to great art, but it has its moments, and it's fun to watch two fine actors sink their teeth into a script without chewing any of the spare scenery.

SOME GIRL(S) (2013) (C+) - Here, LaBute (writing only) leans on Adam Brody, 33, no longer just the cute boy from "The O.C." and "Gilmore Girls," to play the alpha male -- on a tour of his exes as he prepares to settle down in marriage. And Brody makes this work somehow, at least for most of the second half of this rattletrap of a scenario.

Brody is the nameless hero, an English professor and writer of barely disguised, mostly autobiographic fiction that recently landed in the New Yorker, so he's on a roll. He hopscotches the country -- Seattle, Boston, L.A. -- tracking down these ex-girlfriends, starting with his high school sweetheart. The first half of the film, however, presents three sluggish episodes with bland ex-girlfriends who all, bizarrely, improbably agree to meet him in his hotel room. (Not that much actually happens; but still, who would agree to meet a former slam at anything more intimate than a coffee shop? Another annoying quirk of the movie: All the women have gender-neutral names, such as Tyler, Alex, Sam, Lindsay and Reggie(!). What is LaBute working out there? It's distracting.)

The first two women are dramatic duds. Then the wonderful Emily Watson shows up as the older lady from a college fling, in an excrutiatingly bad set-up that drowns both actors on the spot. Their scene ends with the tiredest of old sitcom gags -- one actor asking the other to close their eyes and start talking, only to have the first actor sneak out of the room. Oy.

Next up, thankfully, is Zoe Kazan ("Ruby Sparks" and TV's "Bored to Death"), who is delicious as the younger sister of Brody's childhood pal. Her energy rescues the film after the tedium of the first 40 minutes or so. She presents Brody with a challenge, calling him out on his questionable high school behavior (when he was 16 and she was 12), and finally (if you've made it that far), the film gains dimension. She is coy and flirty and vulnerable, and she and Brody just pop off the screen.

Finally, Brody calls on Bobbi (a feisty Kristen Bell from "Veronica Mars"). She lands the most punches of any of his exes, but these are kid gloves everyone's wearing, so we're not too worried about any knockouts. Brody (to extend this metaphor) shows the wear of these long rounds but regains his legs and finally convinces you that he's up to this task.

Regrettably, LaBute comes up with another cheap twist, and this one falls with a thud. We end up bloated with empty calories, taken in by a script that's mostly icing and frosting. Only a clever coda between Brody (he's all grown up!) and a flight attendant patches up the ending. The direction, by TV veteran Daisy von Scherler Mayer, is uninspired, but in her defense, she doesn't have much to work with here.