In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging film which avoided the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
