In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate 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 fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “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, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the 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 thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating 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.
