In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, 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.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
