During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered 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 Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory 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. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir 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.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided typical double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, 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.
