During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; 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? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
