In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production 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 filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
