In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. 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 Return
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
