Der Brandstifter

John Orr (Ray Liotta) is a veteran arson investigator, who's completely professional at his job and he has an sixth sense for placing the origin of suspecting fires. His loyal partner Keith Lang (John Leguizamo) learns from the best from Orr and Lang has joined the task force in the search of the killer. But some of Orr's colleagues and others thinks that Orr knows too much of these crimes... all too-well. To his friends, family members and colleagues that Orr might be the arsonist.

Directed by Newton Thomas Sigel made an terrific, fast paced thriller that is based loosely on a true story. Liotta and Leguizamo gives strong performances in their roles. This movie has an top supporting cast like Colm Feore, Cliff Curtis, Bai Ling, Illeana Douglas, Ronny Cox, Sophia Bush and Rachel Bilson. This movie was made for TV at HBO Films. Sigel's picture is very stylized and it looks like an theatrical movie as well.

DVD has an sharp anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1) transfer and an strong Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. DVD also includes an fairly interesting running commentary track by the director and cast & crew information. Sigel's film is very entertaining.... he keeps everything tight, over the top and short. Certainly worth seeing. (****/*****).

Good story. Starts out strong but weakens along the way.

Once you find out who is setting the fires, there's not much more to keep your interest. Of course it goes back and forth as to who is really the guilty party but..it gets kind of dull.

This confused and confusing movie tries to be based both on the real case of the worst serial arsonist in California history, and on a book by John Orr, a former arson investigator for the city of Glendale.

The script is clumsy and ill-formed, and plays a foolish trick on the audience regarding two of the characters, the arsonist and John Orr. Nothing is gained by this particular trick; in fact, a great deal of possible audience involvement is completely sacrificed.

The real case is depicted with some accuracy, but also some pointless fiction is inserted, and a potentially fascinating story is badly undercut.

The director is ordinarily a superlative cinematographer, and there's some good cinematography here, too. But there's also a great deal of silly camera trickery -- there's even a shot looking upward at two people (one a very minor character) from >under the foot< of one of them. The fire scenes are deeply unconvincing, and needn't have been.

One odd touch: two of the real-life arson investigators are depicted in the film, and one of them plays the OTHER one. And the other one also appears. Very complex and almost funny.

Point of Origin is about a man who starts fires. Ray Liotta is a arcinost and we see some wierd but great visuals of him imagining how the fires start. However, he the other arcinosts believe he started the fires. John Leguizamo plays his partner who tries to prove John (Liotta) did not start the fires. Thats about the whole story. Nothing too exciting. The characters are undeveloped. Ray Liotta's character, we only get a glimpse of his home life and it is so briefly shown that you wonder why they bothered with even those scenes. The music score was aweful, the worst I have ever heard. It made me cringe at times hearing such aweful sounds. THe cinematography is so overdone that at times it is unwatchable. Also, what was up with Illeana Douglas? She has a fairly small part but she is in it enough where we should know who she is but we never know. OK plot, bad characters, BAD cimematography, and BAD BAD BAD score but for some reason it is still watchable but very forgettable. It is suprising to see a movie like this join the list of HBO movies. For sure, this will be on the bottom of the HBO list of movies.

"Point of Origin" may or may not take liberties with the facts. It is supposedly based on a true story, however it definitely takes liberties with the audience. What is shown to be real, is then flip flopped in the audiences mind to justify an ending that was not quite satisfying. Ray Liotta gives a good performance as do the supporting cast, and as entertainment the film succeeds. It does leave some questions that nag at the viewer, which drags the total movie down a notch. The rapid fire effects are another negative as they become redundant after awhile. My conclusion is that this could have been a better movie if it played on a more level field with the audience, and the fire effects were toned down. Marginally recommended. - MERK