In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence 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 confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming 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 XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard 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 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
