During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to 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 bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator'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 cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
