***SPOILER ALERT*** Disjointed and confusing arson drama that has to do with a sinister plan to burn down a major vacation resort before New Years Day. Being insured for ten million dollars the man behind Valley View Estates in the Blue Mountains in Australia Julian Fane, Guy Doleman,is determined to bring his own project down in flames in order to collect. This has to happen by January 1, two weeks hence, before the insurance policy on the project runs out.
With his mind totally on his work builder and architect Howard Anderson, Tom Skerritt, has no idea that his boss, Julian Fane, is planning to burn down the resort he's building and possibly set him up as the fall guy. Anderson gets a bit suspicious when insurance investigator Sophie McCann,Wendy Hughes, informs him on some very fishy goings on between Fane and the insurance company Proud Alliance. It turns out that Proud Allience is actually owned, or 60% of it, by Fane himself! This explains whey Fane is having all these arson fires happen in order to collect the ten million dollars of insurance which is at least twice as much as the entire Valley View Estates is worth!
We later have Sophie McCann murdered, in a faked swimming accident, to keep her from finding out whats happening with the suspicious fries around and in Valley View Estates. It's when Lloyd's of London, who's underwriting Proud Alliance, insurance investigator George Engles, James Mason, shows up that Fane takes a powder leaving his ace arsonist on his own and out of control to blow Fane's entire plan.
Meanwhile Anderson has gotten wise to both Fane and Engles who unlike Fane wants the Valley View Estates to go under for reasons which are never made quite clear, just watch the last few seconds of the film to realize that, by it's writer and director. The arsonist is exposed as he's about to do in his girlfriend with Anderson coming to her rescue. We then have this wild chase scene with the arsonist getting lost in the Valley View construction site only to have it set on fire, with the help of Howard Anderson, where he ends up burning to a crisps by the time the fire department came to hose him down.
The sudden and unexplained ending never made clear to just what happened to the Big Cheese in this whole scheme of things the sinister and evil minded Julian Fane. It's as if Fane got away Scot-free and only his unstable and deranged henchman, the arsonist, who was only the instrument of Fane's crimes ended up as the only person who payed from them.
With his mind totally on his work builder and architect Howard Anderson, Tom Skerritt, has no idea that his boss, Julian Fane, is planning to burn down the resort he's building and possibly set him up as the fall guy. Anderson gets a bit suspicious when insurance investigator Sophie McCann,Wendy Hughes, informs him on some very fishy goings on between Fane and the insurance company Proud Alliance. It turns out that Proud Allience is actually owned, or 60% of it, by Fane himself! This explains whey Fane is having all these arson fires happen in order to collect the ten million dollars of insurance which is at least twice as much as the entire Valley View Estates is worth!
We later have Sophie McCann murdered, in a faked swimming accident, to keep her from finding out whats happening with the suspicious fries around and in Valley View Estates. It's when Lloyd's of London, who's underwriting Proud Alliance, insurance investigator George Engles, James Mason, shows up that Fane takes a powder leaving his ace arsonist on his own and out of control to blow Fane's entire plan.
Meanwhile Anderson has gotten wise to both Fane and Engles who unlike Fane wants the Valley View Estates to go under for reasons which are never made quite clear, just watch the last few seconds of the film to realize that, by it's writer and director. The arsonist is exposed as he's about to do in his girlfriend with Anderson coming to her rescue. We then have this wild chase scene with the arsonist getting lost in the Valley View construction site only to have it set on fire, with the help of Howard Anderson, where he ends up burning to a crisps by the time the fire department came to hose him down.
The sudden and unexplained ending never made clear to just what happened to the Big Cheese in this whole scheme of things the sinister and evil minded Julian Fane. It's as if Fane got away Scot-free and only his unstable and deranged henchman, the arsonist, who was only the instrument of Fane's crimes ended up as the only person who payed from them.