In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori 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 the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable film which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
