During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe 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. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
