During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile 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 in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – 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, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
