During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins 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 turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear 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.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped typical double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
