In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways 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 a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and flair 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 procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the 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 decent thriller, 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 Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
