During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. 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, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped typical double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
