In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed 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 sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
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 journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir 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.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped typical double cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
