So the film's greater pleasures seep in around the edges of the plot: the gradual revelation of why Scudder quit the police force, the strong supporting performances (notably by Ólafur Darri Ólafson as the caretaker of a graveyard) and the relationship between Scudder and T.J., a savvy but
homeless black teenager who becomes his sidekick.
A moving, somber, and occasionally brutal inversion of the
Black Beauty narrative, Lean on Pete centers on Charley (Charlie Plummer), a neglected
teenager who bounces around from home to home (and is occasionally
homeless), meeting all sorts of adults along the way (Travis Fimmel, Steve Buscemi, Chloe Sevigny, and Steve Zahn among them).