(Slight Spoilers) Deep and penetrating film about the mind of a serial arsonist and how it works with a really great and controlled performance by Ray Liotta as LAFD top arson inspector John Orr.
Checking out a number of arson's in and around the L.A metropolitan area inspector Orr comes to the conclusion that the fires are the work of a single arsonist who's playing deadly a cat and mouse game with the fire and police departments to feed his enormous ego.
As the fires get more and more out of hand with not only burning down stores and houses but also causing fatalities the ATF gets involved in the search for the elusive firebug. This cause friction with the L.A Fire Department who feel that the ATF is nothing but a bunch of Federal bureaucrats who will only get in the way and hamper their investigation in capturing the arsonist.
It slowly comes to mind with the finding of a long forgotten seven year old fingerprint, found at a crime/arson scene, that the arsonist is non other then one of those men in the L.A Fire Department. The LAFD and police as well as the ATF have to do now is not tip off the fireman arsonist to the knowledge that they have a tail on him and are planing to catch him in the act the next time he goes into action.
Very good psychological study that's based on a true story with, besides Ray Liotta, John Leguizamo as Keith Lang extremely effective as Orr's assistant who helps unearth the evidence that put the elusive firebug out in the open. This leads to one of the most unbelievable surrealistic shoot outs ever put on film even though that entire action was just a figment of the crazed arsonists imagination.
The arsonist who, in disguise, is always at the scene of his crime and takes great pleasure in what he did so much so that his huge ego causes him to give the authorities all the evidence that they need to put him away for life.
Writing the "Great American Novel" about the fires that he caused, a work of fiction of course, reveals to the ATF and his fellow members of the L.A Fire Department just who he is and convicts him later in court by proving that he knew things about the fires he wrote in his book that only the arsonist could have possibly known. The arsonist is also a heel when it comes to his marriage with him constantly cheating on his wife by having an affair with a fellow Fire Department worker which in the end has both, wife and lover, see just what an unfeeling selfish and unstable, as well as criminal, person he is.
Very unusual movie that has a lot of dream-like sequences in it to make it's point and even though your kept in the dark at first to who the arsonist is he's revealed with more then half of the movie still left. It's for that reason that makes the film "Point of Origin" that much more interesting. You don't have to figure who he is but you get to see what makes him tick and how he's trapped into tripping himself up by his fellow firefighters.
Checking out a number of arson's in and around the L.A metropolitan area inspector Orr comes to the conclusion that the fires are the work of a single arsonist who's playing deadly a cat and mouse game with the fire and police departments to feed his enormous ego.
As the fires get more and more out of hand with not only burning down stores and houses but also causing fatalities the ATF gets involved in the search for the elusive firebug. This cause friction with the L.A Fire Department who feel that the ATF is nothing but a bunch of Federal bureaucrats who will only get in the way and hamper their investigation in capturing the arsonist.
It slowly comes to mind with the finding of a long forgotten seven year old fingerprint, found at a crime/arson scene, that the arsonist is non other then one of those men in the L.A Fire Department. The LAFD and police as well as the ATF have to do now is not tip off the fireman arsonist to the knowledge that they have a tail on him and are planing to catch him in the act the next time he goes into action.
Very good psychological study that's based on a true story with, besides Ray Liotta, John Leguizamo as Keith Lang extremely effective as Orr's assistant who helps unearth the evidence that put the elusive firebug out in the open. This leads to one of the most unbelievable surrealistic shoot outs ever put on film even though that entire action was just a figment of the crazed arsonists imagination.
The arsonist who, in disguise, is always at the scene of his crime and takes great pleasure in what he did so much so that his huge ego causes him to give the authorities all the evidence that they need to put him away for life.
Writing the "Great American Novel" about the fires that he caused, a work of fiction of course, reveals to the ATF and his fellow members of the L.A Fire Department just who he is and convicts him later in court by proving that he knew things about the fires he wrote in his book that only the arsonist could have possibly known. The arsonist is also a heel when it comes to his marriage with him constantly cheating on his wife by having an affair with a fellow Fire Department worker which in the end has both, wife and lover, see just what an unfeeling selfish and unstable, as well as criminal, person he is.
Very unusual movie that has a lot of dream-like sequences in it to make it's point and even though your kept in the dark at first to who the arsonist is he's revealed with more then half of the movie still left. It's for that reason that makes the film "Point of Origin" that much more interesting. You don't have to figure who he is but you get to see what makes him tick and how he's trapped into tripping himself up by his fellow firefighters.