In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
