In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
