In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
