During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
