Lee Tamahori directed one of the great movies about the proud Māori people in 1994’s Once Were Warriors. While the New Zealand filmmaker has done a lot since then, including big films Die Another Day, Along Came a Spider, and XXX: State of the Union, Tamahori returns home for the brutal survival thriller, The Convert.
Starring Guy Pearce as colonial preacher Thomas Munro, the survival tale finds the holy man at the center of two warring Māori tribes in the 1830s. The footage in this new trailer is bloody and bold, with this looking like Tamahori’s best movie in years.
Premiering at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, the film has received positive reviews and currently holds a 78% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Pearce is joined in the cast by Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne, Antonio Te Maioha, Jacqueline McKenzie, and Lawrence Makoare. Tamahori also co-wrote the screenplay with Shane Danielsen, based on a story by Michael Bennett and the novel Wulf by Hamish Clayton.
SYNOPSIS: Lee Tamahori’s action-filled historical epic stars Guy Pearce as Thomas Munro, a newly arrived preacher in a colonial town in early 19th-century New Zealand who finds himself at the center of a long-standing battle between two Māori tribes.
The Convert opens in theaters and VOD on July 12th via Magnet Releasing.
