During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, 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 future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film 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 that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
