Point of Origin

Reviewer: Edward M. Smith from Glen Burnie, md United States I knew absolutely nothing about this story before seeing the movie. The film began and when it said that it was based off true events, I almost turned it off. What caught my attention was the visual portrayer of the arson investigation... after that it was the story and the performances of the actors themselves. Ray Liotta stars as arson investigator John Orr. He, along with John Leguizamo, are trying to figure out who is starting all these arson-based fires. John Orr is well regarded as the chief arson inspector and if anyone can find out, he can. So the film plays out like a cat and mouse game. You are trying to figure out what is motivating the person who is setting these fires. What makes the story a bit more compelling is that, during the 90's, at least three firefighters were arrested for arson. After watching the DVD, I found myself going over the film again. I figured, since it was based on a true story the DVD would have some interesting extras. I was disappointed, therefore could not give it a 5. Nevertheless I did find the story fascinating.

Very unique! I liked the idea of the main charachter writing a book about the true events. Obviously he was slightly PSHYCO....(Ray Liotta was of course awesome in this part) It held my interest to the very end. The two young actors that played his daughter and her boyfriend were very good. One of HBO's better flicks.

(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.

The acting is top notch, and the storyline for all intents and purposes was based on true life events. I enjoy both Ray Liotta and John Leguizamo's body of work but having said that I think both were incorrectly cast for their roles. Ray Liotta was younger and slimmer than the real fire starter John Leonard Orr and the film seemed to focus more on John's ego and his book writing rather than provide some level of detail on even a handful of the thousands of fires he is supposedly accountable for starting. John Leguizamo plays Keith Lang who appears to hold his mentor in the highest regard even calling him by the name "Professor", but catching the killer is not Keith Lang's desire. Knowing that it was another fire investigator who started to solve the puzzle that it was one of their own (Arson Investigators) responsible for the mass casualties and stress on the fire departments I think more of the story should have been placed on how the crimes were solved and less on the arsonists John Leonard Orr's extra marital affairs. All in all it was an okay time waster but I did not learn any new historical facts watching this made for TV film. I give the film a passable 6 out of 10 IMb rating.

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. (****/*****).

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.

This effort is worth 90 minutes of your life. As fiction, no, but as a true story, yes. An arsonist is on the loose and the investigation leads to an unlikely suspect. This old Hollywood line ties into the ending. I will leave it there. Ray Liotta and John Leguizamo are the focus characters and lesser actors would have made this less interesting. Other comments saying the story doesn't tie together neatly ignore the fact that real crime seldom is neatly packaged. Juries often convict(correctly) on evidence which doesn't all fit into place. Hollywood needs tidiness but the truth often is less than what Hollywood needs. It's lurid enough to keep the under 35 crowd awake and thoughtful enough to keep the rest of us thinking. I remember when Wayne Williams was arrested for serial murders in Atlanta. The number of similar murders dropped to near zero when he was put in prison.

like those dumb kids in high school who try to make friends with everyone and always carry gum and smell funny, this movie tries to hard to attract everyone's interest. It's a weak screenplay with some pretty good cinematography, but it loses it's audience's interest early on.

Fairly diverting procedural based on a real arson investigation. A terrible score and some awfully strange direction that doesn't really suit the story is kept from ruining the film by a compelling performance by Ray Liotta. A veritable cornicopia of actors who should be more famous than they are, it also features John Leguizamo and Cliff Curtis. Don't adjust your schedule to see it, but if its ever on, give it a c

Given the high quality of work in both movies and series that HBO usually achieves, I found "Point Of Origin" to be a significant disappointment, with a plot that didn't seem to flow well and what I thought were some poor directorial decisions (particularly the strange way in which the fire sequences were filmed - the sudden jump into high speed action, with shots of traffic and flames.) All that made it difficult to really empathize with the most sympathetic victims of the fires (the child at the beginning of the movie, and the young woman confined in her bathroom while the flames spread. Ray Liotta put on a decent performance as Glendale arson investigator James Orr, in this true story of the hunt for an arsonist in the Los Angeles area. Orr ends up becoming the prime suspect in the fires, much to the dismay of his former partner (played by Trent Gill), based largely on the discovery of a "fictional" novel he wrote based on the fires (of course, the question becomes whether the book is based on the fires, or whether the fires are based on the book.) Orr is an entirely unsympathetic character, having an affair while still protesting that he loves his wife, expecting both women to stand with him, ignoring his daughters (and coming across as very authoritarian when he's not ignoring them.) There just wasn't very much in this movie that I found appealing, although it provided a glimpse into the methods used to investigate arson. Frankly, though, I wouldn't recommend it especially highly. 3/10.