Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden Review

"Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden" reviews

Movie

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2008-05-08 21:43:23

Rating

2/5

Provider

CinemaSource

Review

Morgan Spurlock follows up his hilarious rant against fast food in Super Size Me with an uneven attempt to find Bin Laden AND laughs in a subject not exactly suited for jokes.

Story

With his Oscar nominated documentary attacking the fast food industry, Super Size Me, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock--who ate McDonalds hamburgers non-stop for a month--found the perfect subject matter in which to insert his everyman persona. He repeated the formula every week on his cable series 30 Days and has now returned to the big screen to try it again, this time as an American citizen travelling to the Middle East to do what the Government can't: find Osama Bin Laden. Unfortunately, using the war on terror as a vehicle for comedy is at best uneven, and at worst tasteless. Spurlock leaves his very pregnant wife at home as he travels to Jordan Egypt, Israel, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on a mission to find the famed 9/11 mastermind and make the world a better place for his soon-to-be-born baby. Before he hits the road, we watch him mug for the cameras as he gets shots and trains to fight terrorists 'Rambo-style'. Oy. The bulk of the film finds him alternately asking average joes on the streets if they have seen Osama in the neighborhood lately and worrying about getting back in time for his kid's birth. As his journey proceeds, he gets progressively more serious and philosophical, a turn that doesn't jive with the film's more whimsical earlier portions.

Acting

As this is technically a documentary, acting doesn't apply except Spurlock really is playing a character he honed in Super Size Me and his series, the everyday guy who inserts himself into unfamiliar places and lifestyles in order to make a point. He's Michael Moore-light, literally and figuratively--an approach that has proven to be amusing in the past but here just feels wrong. His goal apparently is to show that people are really all just the same around the world--same concerns, same fears and what really matters in the end is making it a safe place for your own family. Nice thoughts Morgan, but it doesn't really work this time around.

Direction

Spurlock stars, co-writes and directs using a tiresome framing device of a video game that helps us figure out which countries he is in at any given time. As director, his main goal seems to be keeping the camera on himself, pretending that Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? is about anything other than Morgan Spurlock goes Middle Eastern. There are some memorable human encounters along the way, specifically a local who wants to turn the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan--once thought to be the hiding place of Bin Laden--into an amusement park celebrating that fact. Low point is an uncomfortable sequence focusing on Israeli extremists trying to kick Spurlock out of their occupied territory letting him play the victim without shedding any light on why they react with such hatred towards Westerners. As with so much of his film, you're just left scratching your head and moving on to the next segment of a film that might better be titled What in the World Was Morgan Spurlock Thinking?

Bottom Line

Hollywood.com rated this film 2 stars.

Copyright © CinemaSource 2008.

Movie

Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden?

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2008-05-02 16:40:19

Provider

MRIB

Review

Where In the World Is Osama Bin Laden? should be subtitled 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'. The film industry has had umpteen cracks at getting the public interested in earnest dramatisations of the post-9/11 world, all to no avail. Now Morgan Spurlock turns the whole sorry mess into an infotainment so shallow it makes Michael Moore look like Adam Curtis.

Spurlock made the hugely successful Supersize Me, in which he tried living off McDonald's for a month. Here he repeats the gonzo-for-narcissists shtick, receiving the news of his girlfriend's pregnancy and deciding the hunt for Osama bin Laden is suddenly far too important to be left to the politicians and military, what with him being an impending father and all.

Having taken on bin Laden in a video game (only for the slippery terrorist to slope off, darn him) Spurlock travels through the Middle East and Central Asia picking up platitudes as souvenirs. Among the gems of information he delivers are that not all Muslims are terrorists, the Israelis and the Palestinians conflict is deep-seated, the Americans sponsor some unpleasantly repressive regimes and that it would be ridiculous for us all to sit "around the campfire singing Kumbaya". This sort of stuff may be useful for people with next to zero interest in international affairs, though that begs the question of why they'd be watching such a film in the first place?

Having ventured to Tora-Bora Spurlock withdraws sharpish when his girlfriend calls to tell him she's getting pretty big. He decides that risking his health on junk food hasn't quite prepared him for Al Qaeda, scary as those king size milkshakes can be. Will Spurlock's high profile and Everyman persona draw in people who would otherwise steer clear, in much the same way Michael Moore did? Unlikely. Where Moore arrived with a clear agenda that - positive or negative - demanded a response, Spurlock offers nothing beyond his own ego.

Copyright © MRIB 2008.