Lee Tamahori's Debut Once Were Warriors Showcased a Filmmaker of Courage and Style
In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
