In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he 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 decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
