During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture 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 that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
