The Cove *****

Director: Louie Psihoyos

Year: 2009

Writer: Mark Monroe

If I were teaching a class on documentary production, I would use this as an example of how to construct a documentary feature. It keeps the audience well informed of the problem in society, clearly explaining why it should be changed, returning regularly to reaffirm the audiences belief in the cause, and also developing a riveting civil-disobedience crime thriller.

I believe in the cause, the film makes a very good case for itself, but still, every time I see such great effort spent to save animals, I wonder who's making the oscar-award winning documentary about human rights in some part of the world where humans are being massacred, sold into sexual slavery or sent to fight and die for the financial benefit of some rich fat-cat.

This quality of filmmaking, this care in constructing convincing argument and exciting and passionate law-breaking for the sake of justice could have been used to make a better version of all the recent political documentaries I've seen...