There are signs along the way that...

There are signs along the way that the 1991 Regarding Henry (NBC Sunday at 9 p.m.) could have been a less manipulative, more genuine exploration of what really matters in life instead of the slick Hollywood shuffle that it is. Harrison Ford, more effective than you might have imagined, stars as a high-powered Manhattan attorney, a heedless careerist until a desperado’s bullet in his head leaves him with the mind of a child.

As a cop thriller, The Rookie (ABC Sunday at 9 p.m.) is a bummer. As a buddy movie--Clint Eastwood, who also directed, is paired with Charlie Sheen--it is one more tired entry in a terminally fatigued genre. Even as an Eastwood vehicle--an appropriate term for a movie about a cutthroat car-theft ring--the 1990 film is a warmed-over compost.

In the Line of Duty: The FBI Murders (KCAL Sunday at 10 p.m.) is a real and haunting 1988 TV movie re-enactment of a 1985 shootout of unprecedented violence between two murderers (Michael Gross, David Soul) and several FBI agents, but it teaches us nothing but more fear and disgust for life.

The 1987 Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (KTLA Friday at 8 p.m.), part of the Charles Bronson vigilante series, is verging on self-parody. Director J. Lee Thompson, shrewd veteran that he is, takes a plot of stunning simple-mindedness and turns it into an efficient, fast-moving, hard-action, good-looking comic book fantasy. This time, Bronson gets back into the action when his girlfriend’s teen-age daughter fatally overdoses on crack.

The 1987 Over the Top (KTLA Saturday at 6 p.m.), a very, very simple story climaxing in a Las Vegas arm-wrestling contest, must qualify as a worst-case scenario for Sylvester Stallone (who wrote the script). It’s supposed to be a heart-tugger about a down-on-his-luck trucker and his snobbish, estranged 12-year-old son, but it’s utterly bogus from start to finish.

Zoltan Korda’s 1935 Sanders of the River (KCET Saturday at 9 p.m.) stars Paul Robeson as a river patrol officer in an African adventure tale.