The famous dolphin coach Rick O'Barry is making a new experience in his life by sneaking into a bay near Taiji in Japan. This man is trying to expose animal abuse and a serious threat to human health everywhere.
The Cove is guerrilla journalism at its best. Structured and paced by director Louie Psihoyos as a thriller/caper movie, it brings audience-grabbing cinematic conventions to work in telling its story of dolphin genocide
Then there's the redemptive human drama. O'Barry, acting like a modern-day Ahab after a spiritual awakening, the self-realized incriminations etched into his face, is the driving force of this film.
There are five minutes in this documentary that ought to be mandatory viewing. The entire 90 minutes is utterly compelling, but the five alone are worth the price of admission.
As the subject of a documentary, this grim enterprise distinctly lacks the warm and fuzzy appeal of The March of the Penguins. So director Louie Psihoyos ingeniously reinvents his film as a spy caper.
No Hollywood film, fiction or non-, can ever prepare you for the reality of what goes on in that cove. Please don't show this film to young children. Devastating and excellent.
One of the most suspenseful documentaries ever made, "The Cove" marries ecological espionage to a frightening domino effect of imperialism, political corruption and a socio-environmental disregard.
