In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant 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 fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming 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 second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, 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. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
