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Rated: PG-13; Genre: Drama; With: Annette Bening, Harrison Ford, Mikki Allen and Bill Nunn
C-
By Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is a film critic for EW

REGARDING HENRY (PG-13) In Mike Nichols' processed heartwarmer, Henry Turner (Harrison Ford), a cutthroat Manhattan lawyer, is shot in the head during a holdup. He survives, but when he wakes up his mind is a blank slate. Denied all knowledge of his past, Henry saunters around in a loping daze, a fully grown innocent with the sweet, slack smile of a shy little boy. The movie, which is about how Henry's tragic mishap makes him a ''better person,'' would seem to fall into the therapeutic-uplift genre of Rain Man and Awakenings. Except that there's an unintentional absurdity at its core: Even as Regarding Henry invites us to applaud what a wonderful guy Henry has become, the movie seems weirdly blind to the fact that it's about a man who loses his identity, his inner life. Ford has moments of playfulness, but mostly he speaks in a dazed, halting monotone. He's like a somber elf, and the story plods along to the flat rhythms of his vocal delivery. C-


Posted Jul 26, 1991
 

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