In A Man's World is one of those films with a lot of heart that, with perhaps just a little more experience on behalf of all concerned, could have been a lot better than it is. A gritty tale of kids caught up with low-life gangsters in Aberdeen, the film falls foul of some poor acting especially from the kids, who share most of the screen time and some plot twists that simply fail to convince. Rightly or wrongly, you get the impression that writer/director Lee Hutcheon's script has some autobiographical elements, but sometimes truth is, not only stranger, but sillier than fiction, and the idea for example of a bunch of tough gangsters taping two dozen wee bags of smack to the underside of a seat for transportation across town in a removal truck is quite frankly laughable which is the kiss of death when you're trying to reflect sombrely upon the intransigence of fate and the harsh choices facing youth born to the slums of Scotland.
Too often, the film is derivative of the work of other, better directors. Scorses used doo-wop music in his flicks to establish a feel for time and place: Hutcheon does it simply because Scorsese did after all, what has 50s American doo-wop to do with present-day Scotland?