Movie review - "A Man's Gotta Do" (2003) *

So much going for it, this could have been a massive local hit: terrific idea - Neddy Smith with a teenage daughter. Shot in a fresh location - Shellhaven. John Howard in the lead - awesome. Rebecca Firth as the wife, Gyton Gantley as the juvenile lead - wonderful. Alyssa McClelland as the daughter... not so good, she's miscast (too pretty, too private school), but it doesn't wreck the film. Where does it go wrong? Not using the central concept - there's no subplot arising out of the Neddy Smith stuff; no other gangsters, no look at the underworld, no payoff, no threat - you could use cops, rivals, press, whatever. A terrific idea and they fail to use it. The script stops and starts, there is no flow, there are too many jokes about getting vascetomies, it needed more characters (or using the ones it had better). A great, great shame.