In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the 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 decent thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
