During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting 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 sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps 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 derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, used to protect the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject 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 was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
