During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. 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, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
