In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
