During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
