In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated 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, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to 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 the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films 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 survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear 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 triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
