During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter 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 individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director 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 characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (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 serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
