By Scott Marks
Directed by Louie Psihoyos
Starring: Ric O’Barry
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

“The Cove” washes up on movie screens at a time when most discerning filmgoers have all but abandoned theaters to 9-year-old boys in search of Hogwarts, 3-D gerbils and Megan Fox.

At the tender age of 9 I found myself undergoing a period of dolphin delirium. Along with millions of children worldwide, I was hooked on “Flipper.” These ever-smiling creatures with their infectious cackle and an uncanny ability to pop tail fin wheelies found me studying the show (and its two big screen incarnations) closer than the Warren Commission examined the Zapruder footage. The obsession seems to have attached itself like a barnacle to my cerebrum. As the opening credits from “Flipper” played in “The Cove,” my lips moved along with every lyric of its theme song, nary missing a one.

Ric O’Barry has no one to blame but himself for kindling America’s preoccupation with dolphins. In the early 60s, producer Ivan Tors hired O’Barry to capture and train five dolphins to star as TV’s great grampus. O’Barry faults his work on “Flipper” for starting the global obsession with porpoises.

For years he lived in a world full of wonder bonding with the mammals and picking up a handsome paycheck in the process. His favorite of the bunch was Karen, the exceptionally photogenic dolphin used in all the close-up work. The trainer kept a close relationship with his star student long after the show ceased its run. He sensed an ever-growing sense of anxiety on the dolphin’s part and fed his aquatic friend Maalox to prevent an ulcer. O’Barry swears that Karen, who stopped breathing while in his arms, committed suicide.

You try packing around that kind of responsibility. There is nothing worse than a reformed cetacean coach, and over the years O’Barry has developed a guilt complex that elevates his story to near Hitchcockian proportions. In a fundamental about face, O’Barry became a champion of dolphin rights. He not only besmirches swim with dolphins programs, but our own money-spinning tourist mecca, Sea World, as well. O’Barry notes, “Having intelligent sentient animals perform stupid tricks for our amusement is a form of bad education for our children.”

O’Barry’s calling led him to a remote coastal village in Japan where, in the hush of night, hunters herd and slaughter tens of thousands of dolphins. We first see O’Barry driving through the streets of Taijai with a surgical mask covering half his face. The radical activist has something a lot more deadly than the SARS epidemic on his mind. Many a Japanese citizen would like to see him dead.

The title slaughterhouse is situated in a remote estuary blockaded by barbed wire and cautionary signage. O’Barry likens his band of dolphin liberators to the cats in “Ocean’s 11.” No offense, but you aren’t that well dressed. Tom Cruise may not be smarter than your average dolphin, but his Impossible Missions Force is a more likely antecedent.

Toward the beginning of the film, O’Barry laments the erosion of the Japanese shoreline. Ironically, his team of experts help beef up the coast by adding rock formations under which they will hide surveillance cameras. No one on the crew expects to single-handedly bring down the gang. They will be more than happy to show the world graphic photographic evidence of the slaughter. It has been a long time since I found myself wanting to cheer at the end of a movie. My heart soared as our daredevil activist crashed an otherwise serene gathering of the International Whaling Commission, wearing a television monitor tuned to the atrocities.

Why the Japanese choose to continue the slaughter remains unclear. The driving force behind dolphin hunting is the multimillion dollar theme park business which places a $150,000 price tag on each porpoise’s grinning kisser, but they want ‘em brought back alive, not dead.

Another argument — dolphins consume so much fish that they place the ecological balance and food supply at risk — is quickly dismissed.

Long before I encountered Flipper I was befriended by Borden Milk’s animated spokes-bovines Elsie and Elmer Cow. I was actually privileged enough to meet Elsie the Cow on a day camp field trip. (I swear to you it was really Elsie, not some random cow with a yellow yoke flung round its neck.) If you told me the steak on my plate was one of Elsie’s calves, I’d still eat it.

Were dolphin meat a healthy and nutritional food alternative, let the slaughter begin. An attempt to make Fillet ‘o Flipper a staple of school lunch programs throughout Japan met with major opposition. Dolphin meat is toxic and has been known to contain mercury at more than 1,000 times the maximum allowable level.

You can’t eat them, they aren’t messing up the ecology and the market only allows for a limited number to be sold to seaquariums. Why is Japan legally allowing the slaughter of 23,00 dolphins each year?

“The Cove” is a slam-bang adventure yarn with a true hero at its core. As much as I would love to recommend this myth-breaker for the entire family, there is one unduly descriptive passage where the water turns redder than anything Cecil B. DeMille and his Technicolor Consultant could have cooked up.