The Gardener (1998)

One of my all time favorites.

Good concept, poorly executed.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

"When her beautiful partner mysteriously disappears, Detective Kelly Jones (Angie Everhart) traces her to the Garden of Eden Nursery. There, she meets the master gardener (Malcolm McDowell) who is elegant, brilliant, and deliciously sinister. Everyone thinks she's crazy to hunt for evil in such a peaceful place, but horticultural horrors await for those brave enough to dig beneath the surface," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis, "in this incredible unearthing of a madman's mind." If you want to make a case against film preservation, dig up "The Gardener" (re-titled "Garden of Evil" on my DVD). The hammy starring duo can't get their lines to match, and nobody notices. The props are awful. At one point, Mr. McDowell is presented as a teenager, an age group notable for aged faces and bad wigs. Ex-"21 Jump Street" resident Richard Grieco and ex-"Juliet" Olivia Hussey are upstaged by President Clinton's brother Roger and "Dynasty" regular Pamela Bellwood.** The Gardener (1998) James D.R. Hickox ~ Angie Everhart, Malcolm McDowell, Richard Grieco, Olivia Hussey

The two couldn't be more different, yet they seem to share a similar fate: appearing in bad movies again and again. While McDowell has the best of his films tucked away fairly deep in his filmography, Everhart still is looking for the one feature that will allow her to really shine. Both get offered the wrong kind of parts - for the wrong reasons. "The Gardener" is a classic example of this: there's the mad scientist (McDowell plays that stuff without thinking about it - and it shows) and the abused beauty that brings the villain down in the end is played by - yes, a beauty. How could that be interesting? I know that many would disagree with me but I do believe that Everhart has talent, all she really needs is a solid script and a decent director to bring it out. And would please someone offer McDowell a part in which he's not some freak that makes the Mad Hatter look like Al Gore?

Spoilers herein.(Cat's eye comments follow.*)This is a remarkably intelligent idea, worthy of Peter Greenaway as it combines sex, death, eating and counting. It is about the eternal bond between excrement and beauty. The Greenaway approach would come at it from the side of beauty. This takes an apposite, opposite approach. The film takes beauty (flowers, the statuesque Ms Everhart), kills it and turns it into a vile product. Presumably, the intent is to trigger the viewer into creating their own internal garden in the life we have outside this film.Thus, an intelligent film viewer will see this as a matter of art, deliberately bad. The clue is Ms Everhart's subsequent involvement in a Dogma film, and McDowell's past role with the master of visual indirection, Kubrick. The notion is that beauty must pass through the digestive system, a notion treated here with exaggerated sexual connotations. Everhart is a famed companion of Hollywood stars, and already at 30 is an icon of this process, something of deliberate focus in `Jade.'*Cat's eye comments result when nothing intelligent can be directly said of a film.

A friend of mine bought this film on DVD because he wanted to see Malcolm McDowell in it. After watching it, and consequently spending several weeks in therapy, he somehow convinced me to do the same.You have to understand, this film is diabolical on almost every conceivable level. There is simply no redeeming feature to it. The script, premise, acting, direction, sets, costumes, stunts, score and special effects are all excruciatingly insufferable, but it doesn't even stop there.It is the *only* film I can think of where I can stand up and say "Yes, even the props are awful." In that respect, I am referring to the typical example of a random DEA Officer - little more than an extra - who, for some unknown reason, brandishes a pistol that is so enormous, one would normally expect to find it on the deck of the Bismarck.In this way, an inconceivable absurdity permeates every facet of this motion picture. The US Government would not be unreasonable to establish a special agency tasked with keeping James D.R. Hickox (director), Joseph Gunn (writer) and Angie Everhart (`actress') away from movie studios from now until the end of time.Frankly, I would happily welcome a visit from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, rather than watch this film again. When compared to suffering The Gardener in all its nightmarish glory, passing a dozen kidney stones would be considered a joyous and uplifting experience.