In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this 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 created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
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 the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped typical double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
