In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent 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 procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped typical double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
