During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – 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 “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production 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 filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
