In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided the usual double cliches. And in later years, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
