During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual double cliches. And in later years, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
