During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances 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 nadir, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to protect the heir from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which sidestepped typical double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
