During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
