In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons 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 youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming 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 sequel 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 his Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.