During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, 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 indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
