In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting 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 sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
