During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for 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 moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
