During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. 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 bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
