Director: Christian Sesma
Bare-knuckle brawls and back-alley debts collide in Lights Out, a lean action thriller that throws a broken former soldier straight into the middle of a city's underground fight circuit.
What is Lights Out about?
Struggling to hold his life together after leaving the military, a drifter finds himself pulled into a brutal world of unsanctioned fighting where cash changes hands as fast as fists do. A newly released convict becomes an unlikely ally, and together the two men get tangled up with a crime boss whose reach extends into the local police department. As debts pile up and double-crosses multiply, the pair have to fight their way past corrupt officers and hired guns who all want a piece of what they owe or what they know. The film moves at a hard, propulsive pace, staging most of its tension in cramped fighting rings and tense night-time standoffs rather than sprawling set pieces, keeping the focus squarely on two men trying to claw their way out of a hole that keeps getting deeper.
Cast & crew
Frank Grillo leads as the ex-soldier turned fighter, with Mekhi Phifer playing the recently freed ex-convict who becomes his partner in the underground circuit. Scott Adkins brings his physical fighting background to a supporting role, while Dermot Mulroney, Jaime King, Kevin Gage, Amaury Nolasco, and Jessica Medina fill out a cast of dirty cops, criminals, and bystanders caught in the fallout.
Context & significance
Directed by Christian Sesma, Lights Out arrived in 2024 as a straightforward genre entry built around hand-to-hand combat rather than gunfights, leaning on its cast's action-movie pedigree to sell the fight choreography. It carries a 4.9 rating on IMDb, positioning it as a smaller, unpretentious thriller aimed squarely at fans of gritty low-budget action rather than awards-season attention. The pairing of Grillo and Adkins in particular draws on both actors' long track records in the direct-to-streaming action space.
Where & how to watch
Lights Out is available on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, giving Farsi-speaking audiences a couple of ways to follow the fight scenes and dialogue. Signing up for a free K-Time account is all it takes to start streaming, and the platform's Farsi interface is designed with Iranian diaspora viewers in mind, though this film page can be browsed without logging in.