In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate 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 gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible 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 some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori 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.
