Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? Review

Published by Jeff Leins on: August 25th, 2008

In 2004, Morgan Spurlock burst on the documentary scene and reinvented the way people saw the medium. Plagued with a boring stigma and the far left rantings of Michael Moore, his doc Super Size Me was a breath of fresh air to documentary filmmaking. Meanwhile, he proved he was ahead of the curve on the growing health crisis in America. His film helped bring change to the fast food industry with effects like the disappearance of the phrase “Would you like to super size it?” But it used McDonald’s as an example of a bigger, more important problem in America: the declining health of its citizens.

Four years later Spurlock has made another doc, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, this time tackling the seemingly impossible mission of tracking down the whereabouts of the most wanted man in the world, Osama Bin Laden. While the overeating gimmick in the original served to visualize the ongoing discussion, the tiresome search here is just repetitive without contributing to the murky purpose. No broader message is really being explored here, but instead it introduces more serious and important topics before steering past them completely.

Spurlock travels the globe, stopping in Egypt, Morocco, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to talk with ordinary people about their thoughts on America, the war on terror, and to constantly ask the question everyone wants to know, “Where is Osama Bin Laden?” I find it hard to believe he thought he was going to get more than the chuckles and shrugs the movie is riddled with.

The man-on-the-street response to a subject is a technique the media uses when they basically have no news from verifiable, informed sources. But that’s almost all of what Spurlock uses, randomly striking up conversations with foot traffic about politics, armed with just a translator and a camera. But just like Jimmy James Joe Bob “ain’t know nothing about them there pallitics (sic)” on the streets of any American city when a reporter (or Jay Leno) shoves a mic in his face, the shrouded men and women of the desert countries don’t have much to offer either.

When he isn’t gabbing with the locals, Spurlock is in cartoon form explaining the conflicts like the members of the audience are all children, or he’s fighting Osama in a waste of computer graphics Street Fighter style. Maybe it’s the subject matter, but the humor and charisma he had while eating Big Macs is intermittent at best.

Now a married man with a baby on the way, Spurlock uses the approaching birth of his child as a story arc, making flimsy parallels between wanting to make the world a safer place for his family and his dangerous quest into Taliban territory. I kept wondering why he would spend months away from his pregnant wife wandering around the desert asking a silly question rather than preparing for his life to change, but never saw the answer.

Speaking of the answer, did Spurlock find what he was looking for? Did he locate Osama Bin Laden?

Spoilers ahead, if you don’t want to know the ending of the movie, don’t continue reading.

Spurlock wanders around various countries before heading to last destination, Pakistan, where every other country said he is hiding. But when he gets there, the doc shows him asking directions of random people, not talking with military officials or Taliban underlings. He finally stands in front of a sign that reads, “Attention: entry of foreigners behind this point is prohibited.” An epiphany waves over him before he turns heel and walks away, accomplishing nothing. It would have saved everyone plenty of time if he had just gone there in the first place and had this realization. There’s no pay off after 90 minutes of repetitive conversations just disappointment and frustration.

In the end, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? uses too many silly graphics with not enough laughs to reach a fizzled ending where no conclusions or discoveries are made.

2 out of 5.