During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming 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 American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
