In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday 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 his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
