In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son gets 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 traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch 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 that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable 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 perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
