In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, 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 nadir, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following 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 Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
