In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical double cliches. And in later years, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
