Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer

There's a certain finesse to being a bullshit artist. It requires a knack for weaving lies and managing to keep them all straight. It's also something where having a charming personality is crucial. (Losing friends in inevitable but who cares once you start going places?)

All of that sums up Norman Oppenheimer (Richard Gere) of Joseph Cedar's Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer to a T. He schmoozes so much that he would make Sidney Falco look like an honest person. Of course, such schmoozing can only let one person go so far before it comes back to bite him in the ass.

We follow Norman in his usual routine as he tries to maintain a sense of orderly business. But a number of people he encounters reacts negatively to him, finding Norman perhaps a bit too desperate for their business. It's when he meets Israeli politician Micha Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi) that things start to take a turn for the better...at first.

There's an impressive of performers on display: Michael Sheen, Dan Stevens, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Steve Buscemi, Josh Charles and Hank Azaria. They all stand out when they have their moment in the spotlight (Sheen in particular) but this is Gere's show from the get-go.

As is the case with fiction featuring a political and/or business slant, one needs to stay alert throughout Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer to know what's happening. (The average person can only grasp so much in a single sitting.) Still, Gere (who's been getting a lot of consistent roles as of late) continues to show there's more to him than his leading man roles from the 1980s and 1990s.

My Rating: ****