In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile 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 people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
