During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie 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; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point 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, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
