'Master Gardener' review: Old habits die hard in muddled thriller

Paul Schrader's "Master Gardener" is a tightly wound thriller that never quite blossoms into something substantial. The seeds are there, they're tended to, but sometimes the flowers don't grow the way they're meant to. It happens.

Joel Edgerton is all rigid control as Narvel Roth, an ace horticulturist with a dark, dark past that is revealed when he removes his shirt, showing his body to be a veritable mural of neo-Nazi tattoos. He has traded that life for a quiet existence — we learn in flashback he was once a hitman for a white power outfit who flipped on his crew and is now under police protection — but old habits, especially in Schrader's world, die hard.

Narvel works for a wealthy Louisiana widow, Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver), who calls on him for more than just his green thumb. When Norma's biracial great-niece Maya (Quintessa Swindell) arrives on the property, Narvel takes her on as his apprentice, but Maya's troubled present and Narvel's buried past collide in ways that Schrader knows are thorny and tries to weave together but isn't able to bring into full bloom.

It's not a problem with the performances, especially Edgerton's, whose character's discipline and tension is manifested through his strict body movements and even in his meticulous haircut. But Schrader, the "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull" scribe whose 2017 "First Reformed" was a late career masterwork (2021's "The Card Counter" was less successful), eventually falls into a trap of male fantasy which betrays his characters' truths.

It's messy, but at least Schrader isn't afraid of getting his hands dirty. There's a scene where Narvel takes a mound of soil, holds it up to his nose and breathes it in. He talks about a severed connection to the earth, and how our humanity has been lost the further we've gotten away from nature, and from ourselves. They are themes that have been running through Schrader's work for some time. But this time around, the pruning shears needed a little more sharpening before tending to the old garden.

agraham@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @grahamorama

'Master Gardener'

GRADE: C+

Rated R: for language, brief sexual content and nudity

Running time: 110 minutes

In theaters