This movie is a must see for animal lovers, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to like it, or that you’re even going to be able to sit through it. The Cove is a staggering work, not necessarily for how it’s made, but for what it’s about. Additionally, one admires the people involved as they risk their very freedom working diligently and decisively to expose one of the most terrible animal rights abuses currently perpetrated on Earth, and that’s no idle hyperbole. What gets exposed in The Cove makes the Canadian seal hunt look like Sunday night vespers, and seriously calls into question the reach and effectiveness of worldwide organizations tasked with the protection of water-born mammals and the prosecution of those that hunt them.

The Cove refers to an inlet in Taijii, Japan, a hidden alcove that hundreds of dolphins and porpoises are shepherded into at a time where they’re effectively slaughtered. Between September and March, every year, Japanese fisherman organize what could be described as an old fashioned stampede where dolphins are rounded close to shore and cordoned off by nets to prevent them from escaping back into the open ocean. The dolphins that aren’t selected for display in aquariums all over the world end up rallied to the Cove where they meet their maker. Those animals are then carved up and shipped off to serve as lunch meat for the Taijii school lunch program, or otherwise falsely labelled as more high-end whale meat to stores in Kyoto and Tokyo.

It would take a certain kind of cold-hearted bastard to read that and not at least be given pause about the fate of these perfectly harmless and indeed loveable creatures. If you’re a dolphin unlucky enough to be swimming off the coast of Japan your fate may very well come down to either circus or tuna. If that doesn’t sit well with you, you can imagine how Ric O’Barry feels about it. Much like Peter Benchley, the author of the novel Jaws was based on, who later in life became an advocate against the hunting of sharks, O’Barry, once the dolphin trainer on Flipper, now dedicates his life to protecting them from the same kind of exploitation he committed. He’s more or less public enemy number one to a world full of people accepting the exploitation of the animals he loves.

Fearlessly tackling the dolphin trade in Taijii, director Louie Psihoyos follows an all star team of advocates that decide to expose the slaughter to the world be capturing it live and in living colour on camera. Considering the lengths the industry has gone to in order to protect themselves (the film crew is followed by no less than the chief of police at one point), it’s a mission of stealth and guile. And it truly is a mission, no question, a meticulously planned Ocean’s 11-style heist, or a Mission: Impossible spy game. Experts from numerous disciplines are called in for the job, including movie magicians from Industrial Light & Magic whose mould-makers develop the camouflage for the team’s cameras.

The harrowing quest of the team trying to capture these villains in the act is as taunt as any Hollywood thriller, not the least of which because of the very real consequences of what might happen to them if they’re caught. You end up admiring these people because of their commitment, and I’m sure many audience members wish they could have been there to share the risk. But the excitement of watching the mission come together abates when you see the results in the footage they capture. Watching the sea literally go read with dolphin blood is perhaps one of the most emotionally effective images I’ve ever seen in a documentary. If The Cove isn’t one the year’s best films, it’s darn close. This deserves to be seen far and wide; in fact it must be seen far and wide.