TV highlights for Sun, Nov 25

National TV highlights for Sunday, November 25.

AIR WAYS - SEVEN, 8.00pm

Corinne Grant hosts this real-life documentary following the day-to-day operations of budget Australian airline Tiger Airways. It's more of the same for the Tiger staff tonight as Pablo has missed check-in for his flight and isn't happy about it, nor is he willing to accept responsibility for being two hours late. A family holiday for Suzie and her three kids is thrown into turmoil when her son Damon springs a surprise. Meanwhile, Jeremy could lose his dream job after Tiger cancels his flight leaving him unable to reach LA. But let's be honest, if it is his dream job, he should have just booked a flight with Qantas.

WALLANDER - ABC1, 8.30pm

Kenneth Branagh is outstanding as police inspector Kurt Wallander in this series based on the novels by Henning Mankell. Wallander takes all his cases personally, and it's no different when the corpses of Latvian men covered in Russian mafia tattoos are found on a life raft in Ystad harbour. When a detective helping Wallander with the case is tortured and murdered in a similar fashion, he decides he needs to cross into Latvia and take a closer look at the case. Thrown into a world of turmoil and corruption, and not knowing who he can trust, Wallander will have to go to extreme lengths to get to the bottom of this mystery.

DEATH ROW: HANK SKINNER - SBS, 9.30pm

The death penalty is a contentious issue no matter what side of the fence you sit, but regardless, this documentary from Internationally renowned filmmaker Werner Herzog is an eye opener. He engages in a dialogue with prisoners on death row in Texas. Tonight he talks to Hank Skinner, a man who has been on death row for 18 years, convicted of killing his girlfriend and her two mentally impaired sons. Hank tells his side of the story claiming someone else must have committed the crime as he was too drunk to stand at the time. While Hank has his right to voice his version of events, the place for that! is probably a courtroom, not a TV show.

THE DAM BUSTERS - GEM, 12.05pm, G (1955)

This tense and smartly plotted war film follows the true story of British efforts led by Dr Barnes Wallis (Sir Michael Redgrave, Goodbye, Mr Chips) to take out the dams of Nazi Germany's Ruhr Valley using his ingeniously patented bouncing bombs. Richard Todd (The Virgin Queen) plays the wing commander in charge of the attack. While it may not stand up against the special effects of newer war films, The Dam Busters is a classic, the climax a ripper and is a definite must-see for history buffs.

SNEAKERS - SEVEN, 1.30pm (Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane), 2.00pm (Sydney, Perth); PG (1992)

Old shoes Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Sidney Poitier and Ben Kingsley feature alongside star prodigy River Phoenix in this high-tech thriller caper about industrial computer sabotage. The characters are of little interest and there's more formula here than at the baby aisle of your local supermarket, but viewers will find the techno aspects and the ice-cool Phoenix appealing.

QUO VADIS - GEM, 2.35pm, PG (1951)

Gigantically staged epic focusing on a Roman commander (Robert Taylor) who falls in love with a Christian girl and then converts. It certainly set the template for the likes of Ben-Hur and Gladiator and is fairly entertaining, but the production is infused with the style of overwrought melodrama that made Liz Taylor's Cleopatra such heavy going. Deborah Kerr and Peter Ustinov round out the proceedings, but the result is a tiring production that missed out on the eight Oscars it was nominated for.

THE NATURAL - 7TWO, 3.30pm, PG (1984)

Robert Redford is an enigmatic baseball prodigy whose talent mysteriously dogs his fate, particularly with women. Adapted from Bernard Malamud's classic heroes-and-villains novel, it's kind of like Field of Nightmares: Redford's Arthurian character, Roy Hobbs, experiences one setback after another, but soldiers on (armed with "Wonderboy", his Excalibur-like bat! ) in sear! ch of his dreams. Wishy-washy in parts, but a competent meshing of wide-ranging themes and sport elements.

HIGH CRIMES - GEM, 8.30pm, M (2002)

Hotshot San Francisco lawyer Claire Kubik (Ashley Judd) is shattered when the FBI arrest her revered hubby Tom (Jim Caviezel). Apparently Tom's real name is actually Ron - an AWOL special ops soldier accused of the murder of nine innocent bystanders during a covert military operation in El Salvador nine years earlier. Unfamiliar with military law but convinced that he has been framed, Claire puts her heart on the line and enlists the aid of an unkempt military counsel (Morgan Freeman) to put the skids on the top brass. Weathering stormy emotions with intensity, the divine Judd puts in a juggernaut of a performance that lifts this formulaic whodunit from B to A-grade.

THE BOURNE IDENTITY - 7MATE, 9.15pm, M (2002)

A near-dead amnesiac (Matt Damon), who might be a secret agent, sets out to discover his identity - aided by an enigmatic love interest (Franka Potente) - with minimal clues and a plethora of shady bad guys on his trail. With an action sensibility that no doubt inspired the new and improved Bond, this frenetic thriller from director Doug Liman (Go, Mr & Mrs Smith) is something of a rarity - it's a spy flick in which brains speak louder than girls, gadgets and guns.

GLOOMY SUNDAY - SBS TWO, 10.35pm, MA15+ (1999)

Living up to its bleak title (a famous and controversial song from the 1930s, written by Rezso Seress), this is a very depressing, but rewarding experience set in Budapest. Composer Andras (Stefana Dionisi) writes a melancholy ballad that has the unfortunate effect of causing a spate of suicides. Based on real-life events, it is less a character study than a love triangle tinged with tragedy. The integration of the song and its importance to the characters and their war-torn era is stunningly achieved.

HEARTBREAKERS - GEM, 11.25pm, M (2001)

Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt are a mother-da! ughter co! n team in what is best described as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with extra cleavage. Weaver convinces rich men to marry her and then catches them in a compromising position with Hewitt to guarantee a bumper divorce settlement. Their latest stooge is a tobacco billionaire (Gene Hackman). He and Weaver generate plenty of laughs, while Hewitt once again relies on what is between her neck and navel more than anything else.

THE HARD WAY - SEVEN, 12.00am, M (1991)

Chasing the role of a streetwise detective, a bratty Hollywood superstar (Michael J Fox) has his agent set up work experience with a serial-killer-hunting New York cop (James Woods). Straight off the bat, it's apparent that these two are not going to get along - this tension provides the pulpit for some uproarious odd-couple interplay in which the two stars embrace self-parody with abandon. Action and romance intervene as the two learn to get along "the hard way". Annabella Sciorra is delightful and a young Christina Ricci is memorable in this recklessly entertaining fusion of action and comedy from John Badham (Saturday Night Fever).