The Bottom Line
Adding weight to the danger of this adventure is the fact that Spurlock's wife is greatly pregnant, and appears in the film showing concern that her filmmaker husband will be able to deflect danger and return home in time for the delivery of their child.
The film intends to show audiences the global affects of bin Laden and his terrorism.
- An interesting travelog through suspected haunts of Osama bin Laden
- You get a glimpse of how man-on-the-street Arabs are affected by Osama bin Laden's terrorism.
- You get to see Morgan Spurlock riding a camel.
- Morgan Spurlock dodges bullets and returns home to his pregnant wife.
- Spurlock's cheeky documentary style works better for targeting McDonalds than Al Qaeda.
- Spurlock's 'defiant young man' approach makes the film seem more the mockumentary than documentary.
- It seems Spurlock wants to show how smart he is--rather than to present the truth convinciningly.
- The film's premise is silly, and it's silliness is offensive.
- Story-wise, it seems inconceivable that Spurlock would leave his pregnant wife to search for Osama.
Description
- When Spurlock coos at his pregnant wife during long distance phone calls, his emotion seems synthetic.
- Spurlock's approaching strangers, slyly asking if they know Osama's wherabouts, is silly at best, often quite disrespectful.
- The reveal of local life in remote Muslim village is interesting, but other films do it better.
- Highlight: Spurlock gets his hands on the ultimate boy toy--a mortar! He shoots it. For fun. And says "WOW!" into the camera.
Guide Review - Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden? (2008) - Movie Review
Spurlock has since worked behind the scenes on some interesting projects. But take two on his feature docs roster is another Spurlock-as-star adventure, this time traversing the treacherous territory of terrorism--trekking through the dangerous Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan--ostensibly in search of the ever elusive Osama bin Laden.
Spurlock works his story: he's baffled (as are we all) that experts in the military and CIA can't find bin Laden and put an end to his threats. And, barely months away from becoming a first-time father, Spurlock wants to make sure the world is safe for his first born. Well, anyway, that's the premise.
So, we see Spurlock, dressed in Arab garb, riding a camel across the desert and, clad in fatigues and surrounded by gun-toters, trudging along remote mountain trails. Mostly, we see him conducting man-in-the-street interviews with unsuspecting workers, street vendors, women and children who happen to be within his range, and with others whom he stalks because they're supposedly connected/related in some way to bin Laden.
Unfortunately Spurlock's intended tongue-in-cheek tone rapidly becomes foot-in-mouth, with shallow, insensitive behavior that's embarassing. It's hard to ascertain Spurlock's underlying motive--unless it's to present himself as a profile of the socio-centric American's approach to other cultures. Maybe. But it doesn't work.
We do, however inadvertently, get interesting glimpses of local life in news-worthy places.
