During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, the director 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 Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
