During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.