In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting 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 filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
