Lights Out a fine portrait of the working class American male. The lead actor is well cast, reprising his role from Fight Club and others. We come to sympathize with Lights because he is fair, means well and is generous with his family. He is doomed, however, by his greed and stupidity. In the end he is a doberman who fights for food, and will always be played by the manipulators who use him until they throw away and replace him. Lights is aware of this, but he doesn't mind and soldiers on because his goal is to elevate his family into the intellectual elite, so that they can become manipulators themselves. The family situation is fully explored, and it is made clear that Lights is the leader, financially and morally, of a misfit crew that would be completely lost without him, save for his brilliant daughter. This is the story of evolution, in the context of pure Americana, as Joe Palooka takes the punches to deliver his possibly-unworthy and definitely-ungrateful family to the promised land.
Review of Lights Out
