In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth 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 …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
