The Cove Review

Operation Porpoise successful

Flipper was smiling on the outside but crying on the inside. This is what Richard O'Barry thinks; a man who trained dolphins for the 'Flipper' T.V show. In present years he has become an activist in that he wants dolphins to be free. This then leads him into discovering the mystery of the capturing, killing of the dolphins in Taiji, Japan. O'Barry's main discussion is that he talks about his experience working on the 'Flipper' T.V show and how that when training the dolphins, physically one of the dolphins committed suicide in his arms which then leads him to the freeing of the other dolphins later in his life. That section once you have heard it seems bizarre but unbearably disturbing that something terrible like that happened. Shortly after the sequence, he explains that after the incident of the dolphin, he wants to save the Porpoise which leads him to the goings on in Taiji where dolphins are rounded up by a wave of sound. The reason why they are surrounded by the wave of noise is because they are acute to it but once they are surrounded, some dolphins are captured for peoples entertainment and the others are slaughtered and brings up another sub story of ho the meat of the Porpoises are used for school dinners in Japan. They also bring up another sub story which is important and interesting is that dolphins have mercury poisoning inside of them, which is a problem as the documentary makers point out that the children are basically are eating poisoned dolphin meat for their dinners. The fact that they talk about dolphins and ho they are not intelligent but very aware of their environment like we are as people is something that appealed to me as I was watching this film. The documentary is not only important because it's a story about if this annual tradition of slaughtering dolphins goes public then it might come to a complete stop, but the documentary is dramatic, engaging, sometimes funny and the proportion of it feels strangely close to a Spy/Thriller film because of what a group of people do to expose this by going to the 'Cove' brining with them sound records that go underwater, hidden cameras inside fake plastic rocks which takes evidence of what happens on the 'Cove'. All this makes it feel like a special ops mission, the way it's filmed feels like 'mission impossible' at times with the night vision cameras of the group setting up their equipment, all of them dressed up in dark clothes, and the fact that they hide away from the authorities every time they are there. The way they end the film is extraordinary; they put the ending across in a dramatic simple way and how we have the power to stop this from ever happening. My verdict is that it's a good engaging films with lots of different interesting sequences that the audience connect with themselves and share with other people. 7/10. Alex Rabbitte