In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
