During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness 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 droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
