Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?

What first comes to mind when you hear you're going to a movie titled "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?"? An odd title for a quality film. I saw an advanced screening for market research purposes, and the theater was full. In a similar way to Michael Moore (but far less polarizing), Morgan Spurlock is able to make his point and maintain a great sense of humor. He travels to all major regions of the Middle East- including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan- on his quest to find Osama. Along the way, we meet many middle-easterners: regular citizens, terrorists' siblings, and islamist extremists. To see the sentiment of these people up close and personal is quite amazing, and Spurlock must be truly admired for his courage to venture into these dangerous territories.

I have gotten this far but have failed to mention the humor in it. I will say this much: You will get at least 4-5 belly laughs, and countless chuckles along the way.

It is a great follow-up to "Super Size Me" and shows that he can tackle the more political/difficult issues, but still keep that signature Spurlock smile.

GO SEE IT!

Let's make something perfectly clear: Morgan Spurlock doesn't really want to find Osama Bin Laden. I can only assume his real motivation for making Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? runs parallel with his motive behind Super Size Me - to educate fat, stupid Americans. Considering everyone around the world knows there's a lot of fat, stupid Americans, you could say the target audience for this documentary would be as big as the one that made SSM a must-see hit. But, to Spurlock's detriment, there are things people are ready to hear and there are things they aren't. Based on the critical and box office woes of WITWIOBL, it would seem no one in the USA wants to hear the truth about the so-called War on Terror.

Spurlock might be preaching to the choir of informed critics who know exactly why the US is globally detested, but right here in the good old US of A, he's asking the masses to swallow a very bitter pill. I say the pill is bitter because he spends the duration of his film humanizing Muslims, letting them speak for themselves in ways that radically contradict the conveniently palatable perception Americans have of their (ahem) enemy. The Muslims Spurlock interviews are not gun toting, blood thirsty, irrational, unreasonable or anti-American Jihadists, instead they are the exact opposite: peaceful, reasonable, rational, logical and kind. While there is no doubt a shared resentment towards the US Government, the resentment is justified.

Spurlock doesn't pull any punches in his quest, he tells the history of US foreign policy as it happened and this version doesn't hide the fact the US has been in bed with brutal dictators and regimes for a very long time. The fitting quote provided by FDR sums up the US attitude to their profitable alliances with murderous thugs: "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." This understanding of US foreign policy begs the question: is it any surprise they hate the US Government? All actions have resultant repercussions and if you consider that US foreign policy has marginalized, oppressed and killed millions of people, then is it any surprise when the victims bite back?

There's one particular interview with one of Spurlock's subjects that basically makes us ask: if the US military can describe civilian casualties as "collateral damage," then what do you call the innocent Americans killed by a Jihadist's attack? It's all a matter of perspective and Spurlock posits the uncomfortable reality that war is war and their loss of innocent lives hurt and resonate just as much as ours do.WITWIOBL is by no means a deep or probing study of the issues in the Middle East; it glosses over the complex history of the region and, at times, does so in a very adolescent way. Spurlock, an obvious student of the Michael Moore school of documentary film-making, makes light of many topics by (over) using animated cartoons as a means to parlay a number of ideas. Spurlock uses a mock-video game template to structure WITWIOBL and, despite it being a new approach, it doesn't do the film any good. While on one hand I can appreciate Spurlock is trying to bring a little levity to a very serious subject, his gags are rarely funny and his overall schtick is wearisome. But if you stick with WITWIOBL you'll be rewarded with a film less about Spurlock's self-indulgences and more about having a better understanding of the Muslim world.

Spurlock concludes that, ultimately, Muslims and Americans want the same thing: to have a better world to bring up their children in. Fine for those who have kids or want them, but I don't. As a consolation, I'd be happy to settle with living in a world where people were introspective enough to realize it takes two to tango. WITWIOBL might open the eyes of a few, but in a country divided by two political parties, asking a filmmaker to bridge the divide between two foreign world's might be asking a bit much. Nevertheless, WITWIOBL is well intentioned even if it has nothing to do with it's title.

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I just saw this film at the Melbourne Internatinal Film Festival. I, along with everyone else in the audience (or at least, form what I could tell from audience reaction) found it very entertaining. The film begins with Spurlock deciding to seek out Osama bin Laden in order to make the world safer for his unborn child. As you would expect from this type of documentary, you have humorous animation sequences, songs and interviews. This humour often derives from Spurlocks apparent aim to find bin Laden, however this is not really what the doco is about. More than anything, I found the aim of this doco to be to say 'everyday Muslims are just like you and me' and in telling people that not all Muslims are terrorists. This is most definitely a very good and important message for the people of today. However, I don't feel that this doco really covers any new ground. This message has been covered by many people before in many different ways and will be again. No new light is shed on the topic, or, for that matter, on any topic.

That said, if you were to go in to this film with a complete ignorance toward Muslim society then it may be a different story. If that were the case you would be supplied a highly entertaining lessen in tolerance. Unfortunately, in my experience people of that type of ignorance are not necessarily the type who would sit down and watch a documentary. I suppose the all we can hope is that the cheesiness of the title will draw them in! Overall I would rate it 6/10 for being entertaining, if not groundbreaking.

Whaddya do when your last pic made $11 mil at the box office (not bad for a $300, 000 investment) and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary?

Well, if you are Morgan Spurlock, writer and director of Supersize Me!, you put down your burger, get your shots and head to the Middle East to shoot a documentary about your mock serious search for the world's most wanted terrorist.

After all, with his wife expecting the couple's first child the future father figures he's gotta do something: "If the CIA and FBI can't find him and I'm going to make the world safe for my kid it's time for a new plan. If I've learned anything from big budget action movies it's that complicated global problems are best solved by one lonely guy crazy enough to think he can fix everything before the credits roll."

Spurlock begins his quest for OBL (as he calls him) with his tongue firmly in his cheek but as he travels through Egypt, Israel, Afghanistan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian West Bank and realizes the depth of anti-American feeling the tone of the film becomes sombre and introspective. ("It's hard for me to see how damaged the image of the country that I love and care about has become.")

Don't expect any startling insights into the Middle East conflict. Spurlock films the trip from the viewpoint of an average American coping with culture shock and trying to make sense out of a complex situation. Whether he is thinking out loud on a voice-over or addressing the audience straight to camera Spurlock invites us along to share his discoveries. And who better for a tour guide? Riding with a Jerusalem bomb squad to check out a suspicious-looking package, heading into "hard core Taliban country" with a US military patrol or approaching total strangers in a crowded Arab marketplace and asking them if they can put him in touch with Osama bin Laden Spurlock is witty, smart, observant and unflappable.

The majority of soundbites are from everyday men and women interviewed on the street, around the dinner table or in a desert village. (A young man in Tel Aviv compares the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate to a game of musical chairs. "Somebody is left without a chair ... but everybody needs to sit somewhere.")

In the end Spurlock does not find OBL. What he does discover, however, is that whether they live in big cities or small mountain villages "there are a lot more people out there who are just like us then there are who are just like him."

The movie was quite good, but the reviews here demonstrate the limited power of even a thoughtful documentary approach, to really edify. Take a look at how many of the reviewers think they were enlightened by the movie to stop being ignorant Americans, but like some kind of shameful stereotype come to life, don't realize even after viewing the movie, that Pakistan is not part of the Middle East! A main theme of the movie is that people from diverse societies, have a very different perspective on American foreign policy than we Americans can even consider. Another very subtle theme is that we Americans should be a little ashamed at our ignorance. A point not easily taken, apparently.