Horror film, spy thriller, disaster movie, corruption expose and more, The Cove is a gripping and devastating indictment of Japan's barbaric and secretive dolphin harvesting program
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08/08/09
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The Cove (2009)
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Reviews Counted:107
Fresh:102
Rotten:5
Average Rating:8/10
Consensus: Though decidedly one-sided, The Cove is an impeccably crafted, suspenseful expose of the covert slaughter of dolphins in Japan.
Theatrical Release:Jul 31, 2009 Limited
Box Office: $619,467
Synopsis: The Cove is an astounding piece of investigative journalism with the heart of an action thriller. Led by Louie Psihoyos, leader of the Ocean Preservation Society, and Richard O'Barry, an... [More]
Director: Louie Psihoyos
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Reviews for The Cove
There is nothing simplistic about this story, nor the range of emotions we experience as our journey skids from fascination to devastation.
08/08/09
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.
08/07/09
The Cove is advocacy filmmaking at its best, a project whose success will not be measured in box-office dollars, but by the waves it creates.
08/07/09
The film is paced like a thriller, written as an expose and intended as a call to arms for ecologists, animal lovers and moviegoers around the world.
08/07/09
It's an exemplary and incendiary instance of documentary filmmaking as real-world advocacy.
08/07/09
Psihoyos and his team got the footage they were after -- thanks to meticulous planning, lots of furtive sneaking around and the judicious placement of underwater microphones and cameras disguised as rocks.
08/07/09
Beyond the high-stakes game of cat and mouse, the film explores the mysterious relationship between humans and dolphins and the unexplainable connection between our two species.
08/07/09
Directed by Louie Psihoyos, this well-intentioned documentary exposes the harvesting of dolphins by Japanese fishermen, yet its theatrics suggest a cross between reality TV and Mission: Impossible.
08/07/09
It's horrifying and eye-opening, but I'm not sure it tells quite the story its makers think it does.
08/07/09
It's a true-life horror story as frightening as anything seen on the big-screen all year.
08/07/09
The Cove is one of the best in a growing class of nonfiction films
08/07/09
The Cove plays like the James Bond version of an environmental doc. It could also be viewed as a horror movie for the carnage it depicts. Yet it's quite simply one of the year's best movies.
08/07/09
Top CriticIt is filmmaking not just in the service of the environment, but in the service of a victim, and while that victim may have flippers and fins, it is straight from central casting.
08/07/09
It's not often that documentaries pack as much suspense as action flicks (and even rarer that one does so without re-enactments), but The Cove is a mighty exception.
08/07/09
Thrilling, impassioned and suspenseful as a spy caper, The Cove could launch a new sensibility for environmental documentaries.
08/07/09
Informative, exciting, and surprisingly emotional...its goal is to alert the world to the abuse and consumption of dolphins.
08/07/09
The Cove exposes the dark secrets that underpin the world’s dolphin mania.
08/07/09
For a generation that grew up with Flipper and The Day of the Dolphin, the tense, powerful new documentary, The Cove, is a horror movie.
08/06/09
The Cove is a thriller in a classical sense. It’s the first of these movies to tell a story with more than stock footage and on-camera interviews. It also smartly refracts a major ethical, ecological problem through the prism of guerrilla events.
08/06/09
Top CriticLatest News for The Cove
November 19, 2009:
Academy Releases Documentary Shortlist 
Awards season is just around the corner, and to prove it, the Academy just released its list of the 15 films still vying for a Documentary Feature Oscar. More...
August 13, 2009:
Green Docs Finding Box Office a Hostile Environment
They have timely topics, great buzz, and meaningful messages -- so why are environmental documentaries like "The Cove" struggling to find theatrical audiences? More...
July 30, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Funny People Is Ambitious But Uneven
This week at the movies, we've got the tears of a clown (Funny People, starring Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen), extra-terrestrial visitors upstairs (Aliens in the Attic, starring... More...
June 21, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review
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