During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, 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 two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.