During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
