Kenpo master Bud Holt (Tim Bulot), Bud to his friends, is marooned in Colombia with no money, no contracts and no more taste for parachuting into the usual special ops hot spots. So he sets up a martial arts school in Bogota. As far as ideas go, this is a good one. There's not much in the way of competition for a hard core Kenpo bushido dude... or is there? J.J. (Mark Reading), a thieving, ponzi-scheming, slimy hustler hits on a way to cover his tracks: a martial arts school which promises quick results... El Negocio is written and directed by Tim Bulot. The cast seems to mainly consist of martial artists with very limited acting skills, there is plenty of martial art action throughout, they´ve tried to be as realistic as possible, no stuntmen, wires and other modern filming techniques. But some training scenes come across as adverts for Kenpo techniques and there are two overlong scenes at a fiting range that seems to last forever. The pacing is way too slow and the film is in serious need of heavy editing. The camera work and editing is actually pretty decent, filming the fights so that the viewer can see the techniques used, and limited use of editing. The soundtrack is bad but I guess it´s a matter of taste, personally I thought it sucked...
This review is based upon the DVD released by AJT Video, it´s not rated. I´s available through their website.
Rating: 1 out of 7. El Negocio is just plain boring and overlong and is in extreme need of some editing. The makers should take a good look at Ara Paiaya`s excellent The Suppressor before they make the sequel (yes, they are talking about doing a part 2).
/JL
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