During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects 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 Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
