During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
