In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere picture 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 the film industry who recognized how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson 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 serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing 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 his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. 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 director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
