Title: Grand Canyon
Release Year: 1991 Time: 2 hrs. 14 mins. Rating: R
Production Company: Twentieth Century Fox
Director: Lawrence Kasdan
Writers: Lawrence Kasdan and Meg Kasdan
Cast: Danny Glover, Kevin Kline, Tina Lifford, Patrick Y. Malone, Steve Martin, Mary Mcdonnel, Mary Louise Parker, Jeremy Sisto, Sara Trigger, Alfre Woodard
Set in Los Angeles in the early 1990’s, Grand Canyon examines the unlikely relationship that develops between Simon (Glover), a Black tow truck driver and Mack (Kline), a White entertainment lawyer, when Mack’s car breaks down in Englewood on his way home from a Laker’s basketball game. While waiting for assistance, an already nervous Mack is confronted by a group of young Black men who surround his car and attempt to rob him. When Simon arrives on the scene, he is able to talk to the apparent leader through a show of respect, avoiding real violence. This allows for the car to be safely towed to a garage while a shaken Mack rides in the truck’s passenger seat. The pair talk and Simon shares that his sister Deborah (Lifford) and nephew Otis (Malone) live near the location where Mack had broken down. Clearly phased by the socio-economic differences Mack observes between his own family and that of his new acquaintance, Mack sets out to befriend Simon and help him and his family, who find themselves caught up in a gang war, any way he can.
Meanwhile, Claire (McDonnel), Mack’s wife, has become dissatisfied with her unfulfilling life as she realizes her teenaged son Roberto (Sisto) is becoming more independent. She spends much of her time jogging and repeatedly encounters a large homeless man whose size and proximity frighten her. Eventually, Claire literally finds something new to satisfy her listlessness and must convince her roving husband to go along with her plan. When Mack’s best friend Davis (Martin), a producer of action films, experiences his own bout with violence, he must choose between the financially rewarding films he’s been making and a less profitable change of genre.
There is an old saying: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Grand Canyon is as timely today as it was during the year Rodney King was beaten by police on the streets of LA. Were it not for the ages of the actors, the automobile models and the length of the ballers’ shorts, the film could easily be mistaken as a contemporary commentary. The picture is rife with easily deciphered metaphors. The Grand Canyon represents the chasm between races and classes living within the same city. Basketball is a common denominator between the male characters and there is a lovely scene transition which takes the viewer from Otis to Roberto watching the Lakers on TV in their respective living rooms. A helicopter seems to be constantly overhead with the sound of its propeller reminiscent of those flying low in movies about the Vietnam War, comparing the jungle battlefields to the streets of the city. The women seem to be constantly longing for more than the lives they are living, depending on their men to allow them to achieve their various goals. Performances from all the cast members, many of whom are more readily associated with comedy, are strong and suitably dramatic. And it is a treat to see a 16-year-old Jeremy Sisto (FBI) in his first feature film and Mary Louise Parker (Weeds) in one of her earliest roles. Taking all of that into account, the movie does possess a great deal of “White Savior” complex, but this is acknowledged through conversations between Simon and his girlfriend Jane (Woodard), and this awareness by the writers makes the actions fit perfectly into the film’s world, ringing just as true today as it did in 1991.