During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and as well as his body double, used to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
