Genocidal Organ is a biting and unnerving takedown of the growing power of surveillance states and the uneven tradeoff of freedom for safety that results from said states. Whether it be the massive system of labor exploitation forced upon the developing world in order to keep those in “1st world countries” sated by as many luxuries as they can get their hands on, or the personal cost of forfeiting extremely personal data to government databases, one would be hardly shocked to find out that the author of the original novel was a close friend of Hideo Kojima. While a good chunk of the story oftendevolves into characters sitting around having philosophical conversations, it is intensely riveting if they are conversations that you find interesting, and the more thriller-centric aspects keep the pace brisk enough to have you invested in whatever big reveal might be waiting at the end of all this violence.
As for said violence, most of the gunfights land somewhere on the spectrum between “mechanically efficient to convey the lack of emotions with which Captain Shepherd unquestioningly carries out his orders” and “brutal bouts of gory violence enacted upon your fellow man.” There is no hype to be found in this action, a rare trait even when that is the intention, and it’s pulled off rather effectively here, with the mangled flesh of corpses and newly-made corpses presented as horrific, yet somehow mundane, simply part of the job. That said, outside of its central thematic thrust, there’s not a whole lot to this film either narratively or visually. The characters are easy to watch and have solid banter, but can hardly be described as memorable in any sense outside of Shepherd’s growing disenchantment, and the overall visual design, while rarely prone to moments of jank, also rarely reaches above the description of “accurately conveying what’s happening,” though the shot composition and editing are rather exceptional in terms of keeping everything moving along at a nice pace. It’s a film hinged almost entirely on its themes, but its themes are well thought out and decisively bleak in a manner that continues to be relevant as our society descends further and further into self-perpetuated madness and hate all for the sake of a burger you didn’t even want that much.