In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances 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 XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His 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 shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
