During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
