In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on 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 such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
