During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production 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 directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
