Lean on Pete Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.5

Lean on Pete Blu-ray Movie Review

Horsing around.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 9, 2018

Portland, Oregon has been my home for most of my adult life, and as with any major city in the United States, it’s seen significant changes over even just the relatively few decades that I’ve personally been here. One of the first kind of funny things that a native told me when I moved here years ago barely out of my teens with my girlfriend at the time is that “Portland is a nice place to coast”, meaning there’s a certain laid back attitude where enjoying life can often take precedence over the day to day needs of actually eking out a living. But the “flip side” of “coasting” may be evident in what has become a rather alarming uptick in Portland’s homeless population. There are camps strewn around the inner city now that I certainly don’t remember ever seeing years ago, with whole little enclaves of people living in cardboard boxes, ramshackled lean-tos and a variety of other supposed shelters. It’s perhaps a singular example that even in what is often described as the paradise of America’s Pacific Northwest, economic realities have made life difficult for many. The downtrodden aspect of Portland is front and center, at least for a little while, in the moving Lean on Pete, a film which might be thought of as a “boy and his horse” movie in at least one way, but which tackles a number of weighty issues, not the least of which is attempting to find your place in a world where the emphasis often is on eking out a living, to the detriment of actually enjoying being alive.

The fact that a native Portlander let me in on the “nice place to coast” aspect of this tucked away gem on the west coast may be at least one clue that the so-called American Dream is not regularly indulged in by some denizens of this region, at least at times by choice. In the case of Charley Thompson (Charlie Plummer), it’s certainly not by choice, as he is the unfortunate victim of the vagaries of fate, having been abandoned by his mother and now being raised by his well meaning but ineffective father Ray (Travis Fimmel). Ray’s dalliance with a married secretary at his place of employment leads to disastrous consequences for Charley, though by the time the real horse poop hits the fan, Charley has already met haggard racehorse trainer Del Montgomery (Steve Buscemi) and become his helper, with the two forming a kind of ersatz father - son relationship.

Del has a half dozen horses under his sway, including Lean on Pete, who has seen better days and was probably not a great racehorse to begin with. Charley learns the ins and outs of the regional racing scene, getting to know a longtime friend of Del’s, Bonnie (Chloë Sevigny), a sometime jockey, in the process. Charley may not always say a lot, but he’s keenly observant, and he is not completely naive when he sees Del shove “vitamins” down a horse’s throat or later when Bonnie admits to using a little “shock therapy” to get the recalcitrant Pete to deliver a win on the racetrack. After disaster strikes and Charley is left on his own, Pete’s uncertain fate becomes a focal point for the young boy, leading to a desperate attempt to escape. That leads to the rather remarkable “road trip” aspect of the film, with Charley and Pete hightailing it on a quest to find Charley’s estranged Aunt Margy (Alison Elliott), who is in Wyoming.

Now, there are a number of rather glaring improbabilities at play in Lean on Pete, including Charley more or less evading the grasp of everyone from hospital workers to police to restaurant workers where Charley attempts a “dine and dash”, all in the service of a screenplay that offers a lot of resplendent views of the American northwest while Charley “discusses” any number of subjects with Pete. What makes the film really click in spite of its more incredible aspects is the really remarkable performance by Plummer, who won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Emerging Actor at the recent Venice Film Festival. Plummer has already impressed with his work on such productions as Boardwalk Empire: The Complete Series (which may account for his rapport with Buscemi on this particular film), The Dinner and All the Money in the World. Plummer’s wide eyed innocence plays rather nicely in this film as Charley experiences the flip side of the American Dream, encountering downtrodden folks who, if they ever did dream, found themselves instead in their own personal nightmares.

There is absolutely no question that Lean on Pete builds to some devastating emotional moments (without overtly spoiling anything, let’s just say that this isn’t the horse version of Free Willy). That element may be frighteningly realistic, even if some other aspects, including the aforementioned ability of Charley to evade capture with a horse in tow, don’t really resonate as totally believable. But the film is a sincere and cathartic look at a young boy trying to find a place of refuge in a world that seems hell bent on preventing him from finding it. The film’s title may reference Charley’s “BFF”, a horse of all things, but the real message of the film may well be that Charley learns to lean on himself, and finds that that is more than enough in the long run.

Lean on Pete Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Lean on Pete is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Once again the IMDb is sadly lacking in any real technical data on the shoot, but once again your intrepid reviewer tracked down this rather interesting interview with cinematographer Magnus Nordenhof Jønck where he discusses digitally capturing the imagery with Alexa products, due both to time constraints (waiting for dailies wouldn't have been feasible), as well as the ubiquitous night and/or "magic hour" shots that fill the story and which Jønck states would have been challenging to achieve on 35mm. This is often a resplendently beautiful film, as can hopefully be seen in some of the screenshots accompanying this review. The palette is rather refreshingly ungraded (or at least appears to be so), looking warm and natural throughout. The many outdoor shots often have impressive depth of field in shots that offer rather stunning vistas. Fine detail is commendable in the many close-ups, and often even in midrange shots. Perhaps ironically, the one qualm I personally had here was with regard to shadow definition in some of the nighttime shots. It's actually fairly hard to make out what's going on in a couple of extremely dark moments, though perhaps things would have been even murkier on actual celluloid per Jønck's assertion. Aside from that passing issue, this is a really beautiful looking transfer that offers no compression anomalies.

Lean on Pete Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Lean on Pete's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix has a glut of ambient environmental effects which really open up and support the surround presentation, beginning with sounds of breezes before the actual imagery even begins. There are a number of nicely done panning effects as horses gallop through the frame, and other moments, including a climax of sorts featuring cars in the desert really offer surprising sonic energy. Dialogue is always presented cleanly and clearly, and James Edward Barker's elegiac score spreads through the side and rear channels quite winningly.

Lean on Pete Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Searching for Home: The Making of Lean on Pete (1080p; 27:34) is an above average EPK with some really interesting interviews and behind the scenes footage.

Lean on Pete Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There is a racetrack in Portland, for those who may wonder about such things (it's called Portland Meadows, not Portland Downs, as is seen in screenshot 5), and indeed there's actually a neighborhood called Delta Park very close to it which Charley mentions early in the film. Those elements are obviously based in "reality", while other aspects of the film do tend to push suspension of disbelief pretty dramatically at times. That perhaps makes it all the more remarkable that Lean on Pete is a uniquely emotional film, one that may well bring a lump to the throat of the most hard hearted viewer. Plummer is exceptional in a role that requires him to be onscreen almost nonstop, often with only a horse as the other putative "character". The supporting cast here is also excellent, even if they tend to drift in and out of the story. Technical merits are first rate, and Lean on Pete comes Highly recommended.