In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits 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 fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men 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 filming 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 sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. 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, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable movie which sidestepped typical double tropes. And in later years, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
