Tale of the tape reveals good things for ‘Lights Out’

Don't be fooled by the fact that around the house, he's closer to Rachael Ray than Sugar Ray: Former heavyweight champ Patrick "Lights" Leary (Holt McCallany) feels as out of place in 2011 as home equity and civil political discourse.

He's the cash-strapped, near-tragic hero of "Lights Out" (10 p.m. Tuesday, FX), the compelling new boxing drama that plays out like a "Rocky" for the recession. Think of it as the story Stallone should have told following the patriotic fluff of "Rocky IV."

From the classic muscle car in front of his opulent home to his quiet, humble nature to the fact that he'd never even consider taking -- let alone texting -- pictures of his manly bits, the 40-year-old Lights clearly was born several decades too late.

McCallany, meanwhile, seems born to play Lights -- the hulking body of a warrior, tree trunk for a neck, head that's, like, 90 percent jaw -- and the role just sort of washes over him.

Generous to a fault, Lights just wants to do right by all the various people in his life, even though that usually ends up making his own existence that much harder. There's the private school bills for his three daughters and the medical school bills for his wife (Catherine McCormack), the money pit of a gym he bought for his fight trainer dad (Stacy Keach) and the diner he bought for his sister (Elizabeth Marvel). But nothing compares to his ill-fated decision to send his rare-do-well brother, Johnny (Pablo Schreiber), to business school so he could manage Lights' money.

The Leary with the most in-ring promise until a detached retina (or maybe it was just a lack of heart) forced him to hang up his gloves, Johnny blew through Lights' entire $12 million fortune, and then some, thanks to a series of bad investments and general mismanagement.

Lights, though, doesn't learn of his financial woes until it's long past too late. But that doesn't stop him from scrambling to accept a series of stopgap paychecks -- calling bingo numbers, starring in lame carpet store commercials, hawking bobble heads and autographed gloves on a home-shopping channel -- with the same discerning eye with which Nicolas Cage chooses his film roles.

He's never bitter, though. Not toward his dad, whose flawed in-ring strategy cost Lights his title five years ago. Nor toward his wife, whose desperate pleas for his safety and threats to take the girls and leave him if he didn't retire made certain that fight was his last.

During a TV interview tied to the anniversary of his controversial split-decision loss, Lights is asked if he misses the ring.

"Depends if my wife's watching," he offers. "If she's watching, I say retirement is wonderful. I've seen too many guys hang around one fight too long. That's all it takes sometimes. Knowing you'll grow old with your health intact? Best move I ever made."

"And if she's not watching?"

"Sometimes," he adds with smile, "you miss hittin' people."

But that's as close to rueful as he gets. A proud, noble man, Lights won't even blame Johnny for his current predicament, made worse thanks to some dangerous business with a local bookie/loan shark (Bill Irwin) that forces Lights down some dark alleys he never thought he'd explore.

"Lights Out" offers critics the rare pleasure of getting to see its entire 13-episode season in advance. (We're usually only given one or two episodes, which is rather like being asked to review a movie after its first six minutes.) Still, it isn't much of a spoiler to say that Lights -- despite silently suffering from pugilistic dementia that could progress into Alzheimer's in as little as two years -- eventually returns to the ring to settle his debts. Heck, in this economy, you could fill a phone book with all the Average Joes who'd line up to get their heads caved in if it meant their families would be taken care of.

But the thing that will stick in your gut isn't that Lights will risk his life when he eventually steps through the ropes. We've all seen that before. It's that he'll do so in a country that, outside of Las Vegas and Hollywood, largely stopped paying attention to boxing around the time Mike Tyson made a late-night snack out of Evander Holyfield's ear.

Lights may be a local hero -- he can't walk a block in his Bayonne, N.J., hometown without someone calling him "Champ" -- but when he heads off to the neighborhood bar to watch a welterweight title fight with his dad, they instead find mixed martial arts on every TV screen. ("What are these guys trying to do," Pops laments, "hug each other to death?")

There was a time growing up when I could rattle off the names of a dozen or more current boxers, and I didn't even follow the sport. These days, I can name fewer fighters than Kardashians. Limit it to the once-proud heavyweight division and the same is true of competitive eaters.

Lights may see boxing as his last, best hope. But given the sport's fall from grace, "Lights" just may offer boxing that same second chance.

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Sundays. E-mail him at clawrence@ reviewjournal.com.