During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son receives tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson 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 thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
