Dolphins are cute. People love to watch dolphins, both in the wild and in captivity. We want our tuna to be "dolphin safe" so that dolphins aren't killed in the fishing process. But in some countries, dolphins are slaughtered for food. What are we to make of that?

In The Cove, we see the slaughter take place and hear the argument for ending both the killing of dolphins and their capture for aquariums. The film centers on Taiji, Japan, a village involved in both activities. Each fall dolphins are herded into a bay where those looking to buy dolphins for aquariums pick the ones they want. The rest are taken to a nearby isolated cove where they are killed.

Ric O'Barry was the best known dolphin trainer in the 1960s. He was the trainer for the TV show Flipper. Now he campaigns for dolphin protection. He has been to Taiji often and is legally banned from doing much of anything that would interfere with the dolphin hunt. The fishermen and people of Taiji are very secretive (or maybe protective) about the hunt. They work very hard at preventing anyone from photographing the events. O'Barry gathered a group of activists to run a clandestine mission to capture the killing of the dolphins on film. The Cove is really two films in one: a teaching film dealing with the issues involved in the dolphin hunt and an adventure film about this undercover op. The latter is by far the better part of the film.

Let me be clear. I like dolphins. I don't want to see them slaughtered. I'm sure that those who made this film are deeply concerned about an important ecological issue. But I have to say that they didn't pull me into their camp. From the start the tone of the argument was so clearly one-sided that I immediately turned my skepticism on to full power. The film's case is almost entirely ad hominem—that is, it relies on feelings and emotion rather than logic. It plays on our attraction to dolphins, showing them surfing in waves, seeing divers connect with them, seeing children petting them in places like Sea World. (By the way: O'Barry doesn't want you to be able to pet dolphins at Sea World.) How can we then countenance the group killing? But would it be different if we were to watch cattle or lambs prior to slaughter?

Another more subtle bit of manipulation can be seen in the way shots of Joji Morishita, Japan's delegation head to the International Whaling Conference (IWC), are edited in. When we hear people supporting whaling, we see Morishita with the faintest smirk. When people speak against whaling, we see him with just a bit of frown. In either case we perceive him as a villain.

The argument put forth in the film at times circles back against itself. For example, at one point it complains that the IWC is a toothless organization, then later it complains that it does nothing. It also brings in issues that aren't especially germane, such as how industrial mercury contamination led to Minamata Disease in Japan in the 1950s. (Dolphin meat is high in mercury, so that is the connection.) Even the attention to the IWC may be a bit of misdirection in that concerns of larger and smaller cetaceans (whales and dolphins) may differ significantly, but here they are lumped together.

It may well be that the clandestine troop in The Cove have done a noble job in letting the world see what is going on in Taiji. Perhaps the world needs to cry out and stop it. This film will surely push some people to do something about it based on their emotional response, but it really hasn't made its case in a clear and convincing fashion.