During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, 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 Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped typical double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
