An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Had high hopes for this movie, Richard Gere is always a recommendation. As Norman, I barely recognized him, shows what a good actor he is. the 'plot' was not immediately clear,then I realized there was no clear plot. just a movie about a 'nebbishe' ( yiddish word for loser) man, who tries his best to fix things which don't need fixing, today we would say he is networking. After 1/2 an hour I understood the principle... the rest was boring, and very longwinded. Some of the acting was good, it is always very nice to see familiar parts of Manhattan ( I am from Amsterdam, Holland but visit NY often). In all , I don't recommend this movie; it would have been good if many scenes were cut...

I was hoping to see something great with Richard Gere, since the cover said "his best performance ever." However, I spent the whole time wondering when will this end. I found it extremely boring, the characters are not interesting. You feel sorry for Norman, he tries so hard to get people together. I sometimes wonder why Hollywood makes so many poor films,the money could be used for other things. Oh well, at least it was not violent which is the norm for most films today. Good actors wasted on poor writing.

Washed up older white collar hustler dabs with politics = slow, political b.s. and very pointless, and I do mean pointless. I was hoping for some big climax, and granted I got some interesting story line towards the last 20 mins of this film, but not worth the wait. I considered giving up watching this to the end at least 4x since the start. The almost 2 hours of this film needed to be edited down to 1:20 mins.I still gave it a 5/10 only due to the outstanding performances by Richard Gere, Lior Ashkenazi, Michael Sheen and Steve Buscemi as the Rabbi, who really wasn't meant for this role. Every time I see him, I expect comedy, and this wasn't his character.The ending was bittersweet, but the build up towards it was very slow and dragged out. If you're into politics, especially Israel/USA issues, and like the scenery of NYC, then you may find this more enjoyable.Only the characters barely held my attention.It's barely a 5/10 from me.

That a minor New York con artist, not to mention the up-and-coming Israeli politician he seeks to influence, would be so utterly naive about their interactions, as portrayed in "Norman," might have been intended to make for a feel-good movie that lightly touches on important political matters. But I couldn't buy the premise, so I couldn't buy the bit. The Richard Gere character, in particular, comes across as puckish, almost likable, and wholly transparent as a minor liar. Only the conversations between the Israeli PM and his wife and a few of his staff members seem at all authentic.Accordingly, the redemption that arrives in the last reel struck me as forced and inauthentic. Maybe the film would have worked better as a musical.