During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, used to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
