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This film looks at life in the Bedford-Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn on a hot summer Sunday. As he does everyday, Sal Fragione opens the pizza parlor hes owned for 25 years. The neighborhood has changed considerably in the time hes been there and is now composed primarily of African-Americans and Hispanics. His son Pino hates it there and would like nothing better than to relocate the eatery to their own neighborhood. For Sal however, the restaurant represents something that is part of his life and sees it as a part of the community. What begins as a simple complaint by one of his customers, Buggin Out - who wonders why he has only pictures of famous Italian-Americans on the wall when most of his customers are black - eventually disintegrates into violence as frustration seemingly brings out the worst in everyone.
Life over twenty-four hours during a heatwave along one small section of Stuyvesant Avenue in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn is presented. It is a historically black section, with the exception of Sals Pizzeria, which has been located there for twenty-five years, Sal, who now operates it with his two young adult sons Pino and Vito, making the very conscious decision on location due to the overabundance of pizzerias in his own Italo-centric neighborhood, in the process doing good business. Sals customer base has largely been the black residents of the neighborhood, he currently employing black Mookie as a delivery boy. However, the makeup of the neighborhood has slowly been changing with Latinos moving in - Mookies girlfriend, Tina, also the mother to his son, being Latina - gentrification leading to well-off Caucasians buying properties, and a recent immigrant Korean family opening a general store across the street from the pizzeria. There has been an underlying tension between the races as each tries to stake out his or her place: competing boomboxes blaring Caribbean music from one and black music from another; Pino, in particular among those in Sals family, not liking the business largely due to the clientele and neighborhood; and contempt by some for the seeming success of the general store operated by a visible racial exception in the neighborhood, despite that property having sat empty for years. But on this day, the seeming spark that may ignite that tension is black Buggin Out taking exception to Sal only posting the photos of ethnic Italian celebrities on the pizzerias Wall of Fame, instead of including "brothers and sisters" to reflect the makeup of Sals customer base.
Danny Aiello
Sal
Ossie Davis
Da Mayor
Ruby Dee
Mother Sister
Richard Edson
Vito
Giancarlo Esposito
Buggin Out
Spike Lee
Mookie
Bill Nunn
Radio Raheem
John Turturro
Pino
Paul Benjamin
ML
Frankie Faison
Coconut Sid
Robin Harris
Sweet Dick Willie
Joie Lee
Jade
Miguel Sandoval
Officer Ponte
Rick Aiello
Officer Long
John Savage
Clifton
Samuel L. Jackson
Mister SeƱor Love Daddy
Rosie Perez
Tina
Roger Guenveur Smith
Smiley
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