In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture 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 the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical double cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
