During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
