In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, 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 the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
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 brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
