During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son receives tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
