In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives 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 traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
