During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
