During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
