In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
