During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his 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 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
