During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back 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 people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
