After making an award-winning short while a student at NYU ("Hot Dogs for Gaugin" starring Danny De Vito), Brest wrote and directed his first feature, "Hot Tomorrows" (1977), during a fellowship program at the American Film Institute. He achieved "wunderkind" status at age 28, directing veteran performers George Burns, Lee Strasberg, and Art Carney in "Going in Style" (1979), which he also scripted. Brest next developed the sci-fi thriller "War Games" (released in 1983) but was pushed off in favor of John Badham. He proved adept at the comedy-adventure genre and scored big at the box-office with the first Eddie Murphy vehicle, "Beverly Hills Cop" (1984). Brest then joined the succession of major filmmakers who were involved in but did not make "Rain Man" before directing Robert De Niro in an effective light-hearted role, opposite Charles Grodin in "Midnight Run" (1988), which also marked his producing debut. In 1992, Brest broke away from the action-comedy genre with the tearjerker "Scent of a Woman", featuring a blind, embittered Army Colonel played by Al Pacino, who won a Best Actor Oscar for his emoting. Despite the success of that film, Brest would not make another film until 1998 when he helmed "Meet Joe Black," a modern variation on "Death Takes a Holiday" that cast Brad Pitt as the embodiment of Death, discovering such human pleasures as peanut butter and Claire Forlani. The film, however, was hardly well-received by critics or audienece, who found the film precious, labored and tedious. Even worse was the response to Brest's next film, which he also wrote, the mob comedy "Gigli" (2003) starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. Released at the height of public interest in the Affleck-Lopez romance, the film underwent much tinkering and reshooting to accomodate the public expectation of an on-screen dalliance between the two, despite the fact that Lopez's character was written and originally shot as a confirmed lesbian. The resulting critical drubbing was of "Ishtar"-like proportions.