During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt 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 Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
