The lines continue to fade. As Jia Zhang-ke and Gus Van Sant invariably redefine their idiosyncratic hybrids of documentary, performance art, and experiential drama, documentaries begin to take on the characteristics and structure not only of narrative filmmaking, but of specific genres. Barbet Schroeder's hulking Terror's Advocate could have been a Costa-Gavras joint; Man on Wire was a high-stakes thriller that just happened to have the novelty of being true.

Halfway through The Cove, Louie Psihoyos' activist documentary on the annual dolphin-slaughter that goes on at a small cove in Taiji, one of the impassioned agents of a protesting omnibus likens his group of high-tech abolitionists to the chummy thieves of Ocean's Eleven. The press notes later describe The Cove as being an "intelligent/action/adventure/Ocean's Eleven-like horror film," which is just a notch left of lunacy. Self-aware and just a little too coy, Louie and his crew have taken it upon themselves to collect both photographic and audio proof of the extent of the massacre that goes on at the titular coastal inlet in Japan under the guise of cultural preservation.

One member of the team is Richard O'Barry, the animal trainer and trained diver who, for three seasons, was the man who taught and directed the five or six dolphins who played Flipper. He has since given up his training days and become a notorious advocate for marine mammal rights, getting banned from the International Whaling Commission and becoming something of a Butch Cassidy in Taiji; or should I say Rusty Ryan?

Like Man on Wire, The Cove benefits greatly from its structure, making the nightvision incursions into the cove rousing moments of tension with dapples of humor. Heroes actress Hayden Panettiere shows up for a moment in rough, hand-held footage as part of a collective of surfing exponents who infiltrated the cove for a sort of board-in. For hortatory, there are moments of the film not for the faint of heart, principle amongst these being the ocean of blood after the slaughter and the spastic final convulsions of a few bottlenoses. There are also some inciting instances of political intrigue, such as Japan's bribing of poverty-stricken countries to continue supporting the dolphin slaughter and the threat of mercury poisoning inherent in dolphin meat.

By the end of the film, I was a little tired of the self-congratulatory tone and Joshua Ralph's bloated score -- he also provided the music for Man on Wire -- but there's no denying The Cove's passionate argument for enlightened, innovative advocacy.