In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; 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 gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
