Comment on 'Dead Metaphor' review: Home just another war zone

'Dead Metaphor' review: Home just another war zone Little details begin to add up, from the momentary reaction - startled, repelled, curious - that Anthony Fusco's by-the-book jobs counselor Oliver Denny tries to cover up when he learns the trained-killer past of his Army veteran client. The earnest openness of the wholesome young Dean Trusk, engagingly played by a boy-next-doorish George Hampe, underscores the crueler absurdity of finding jobs for those we've trained to be efficient killers. By the middle of Walker's smart, funny but never fully engaging dark comedy, Dean's professional skills have become more in demand than he could've imagined. [...] rather than drawing us into the characters' lives and developing a life-or-death situation, the script and director Irene Lewis' production seem to hold us further at arm's length. The action unfolds in mostly crisp, short scenes with spare furnishings revolving on the concentric circles of a target-like set as the story shuttles between the Trusk and Denny families. [...] Oliver, having gotten Dean a job with his right-wing politician wife Helen's campaign, grows horrified at her viral extremism.