In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting 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.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging film which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
