John Turturro, who plays Pino in this film, represents one of the major problems facing this community and society in general. Unlike his father, Pino hates the black community where Sal's Famous is located. He despises everything that they stand for and if it were up to him, he would close down his father's pizzeria and open up another shop in their own neighborhood. Because of Pino's complete lack of an attempt to try to understand the customers he serves, he just hates and resents them because their business, along with Sal's pride keep him in this neighborhood.
Pino represents one of the major problems in this film, which is a intolerance of other people. Pino keeps a wedge between his-self and the community and throughout the film he continues to create a disconnect between himself and the patron's inside and outside of the pizzeria. Pino tries to convince both his father and his brother that they are not wanted in this neighborhood and that they no longer belong with these people; his brother, who likes Mookie, listens to mookie but sides with his brother out of loyalty. Also, his father considers his establishment as an accomplishment to all of his hard work and refuses to close it up. Pino's ideals contribute to the rising tensions in the film between a number of characters including Smiley.
While the majority of his rants could simply be dismissed, he was right in the end that the people in the neighborhood were animals and had no respect for them. The entire neighborhood took on a mob mentality because of the altercation between Sal and Radio, which ended in the death of radio and the destruction of Sal's Famous.
Interesting comments here, Atlee. I think it's worth concentrating a bit more on the clannishness of Pino's vision, i.e., that Italians should stay in their neighborhood and that African-Americans should stay in theirs. While his view may seem abhorrent, we see a similar idea embedded in the black community here, too, at least in the case of some, like Buggin' Out. So we might stretch this further and at least consider how the film sees his potential solution from both sides. Also, I have to say I'm a little disturbed by the assertion that the neighborhood folks are, as Pino says, "animals." While we may find their response to Radio Raheem's murder extreme and wrong-headed, I think we have to acknowledge their rage as legitimate and all too human. In fact, we might see the unifying quality of their violent response as a strangely positive result. In any case, to call them animals is to buy in to Pino's rhetoric.
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