In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
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 energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear 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 triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
