In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
