Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? (2008)

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Thank the Good Lord; we all know that Osama is at the bottom of some DEEP bottomless, and punishing ocean somewhere on the face of our earth!!! I am grateful that he is no longer a threat to the lives of our American citizens, although his religious beliefs have been overtaken by some equally--possibly even MORE evil people in the form of ISIL supporters that are roaming the planet at will today and in the present. I believe in everyone's right to practice their religion in their own way as long as they don't impinge on anyone's human rights! This could never be said of those super-Muslim supporters and those who believe in the tenets of Sharifa law, which includes those involved with ISIL!!! May God take care of them in an equal and final ending, just as was undertaken and accomplished in Osama's case!

Forget about Carmen Sandiego. What we really want to know is where in the world is Osama bin Laden? That's what Morgan Spurlock, the documentarian who brought us "Super Size Me," is determined to find out – and he's gone and made a whole movie on the subject. He wonders why, all these years after 9/11, the man who perpetrated that atrocity has yet to be found and brought to justice – even with a $25 million reward hanging over his head. So if the CIA and the FBI can't locate him, perhaps Spurlock himself can. And with a baby of his own on the way, Spurlock has a new-found reason for wanting the world to be a peaceful place. So off he goes on a tongue-in-cheek – but, at the same time, deadly serious - tour through some of the most dangerous places on Earth in search of the Most Wanted Man in the universe.So, after getting his inoculations, a little defense and survival training, some language lessons and tips on fashion, Spurlock is off and running on his journey.He makes stops in Egypt, Morocco, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and, finally, Pakistan (where most experts believe bin Laden is hiding out, if, indeed, he's alive at all) and, in each of those places, he discovers that people are just people, regardless of their religious and sectarian differences, and that the vast majority of them want pretty much the same thing: to earn a decent living, to provide for their families, and to see their children grow up in a world where people are free to live at peace with one another.Not that he doesn't encounter individuals who express support for bin Laden and al Queda and sympathize with their causes - just that such people appear to be in the minority, even in that part of the world.Spurlock is unsparing in his criticism of America for propping up dictators in these areas and for funding their brutal regimes, thereby providing a fertile breeding ground for present and future terrorists. But he also takes swipes at the radical Muslims themselves, who, through their extremist, blood-soaked actions, do all they can to give Islam a bad name. Perhaps, the most fascinating leg of the tour occurs in Saudi Arabia, where even Spurlock is shocked by what he sees: a country where church and state are truly one, where there is no freedom of speech or the press, and where religious moderates are as rare as a bin Laden sighting in a local strip joint. This leads to the most bizarrely incongruous and darkly amusing image in the film: that of an opulent, state-of-the-art mall swarming with women shoppers covered from head to toe in black burkas.While Spurlock is dead serious in his intentions, his tone in "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?" is refreshingly light-hearted and gleefully ironic. He even finds humor in exploring the caves of Tora Bora, where, it is believed, bin Laden planned out the 9/11 attacks and where he was last seen. Spurlock also uses animation and simulated video game imagery to enliven the tone.It doesn't require a spoiler alert to report that Spurlock is ultimately unsuccessful in finding bin Laden – if that indeed was his actual goal. But if his intention was a broader one – namely, providing an amazingly comprehensive survey of attitudes in the Muslim world and to show that we are all in this fight together - he has achieved it ten times over.

When Morgan Spurlock discovers he is going to be a father his initial feelings of joy are overcome with an intense worry about how he can protect his child from the dangers of the world. Of course saving for the future, educating from a young age and moving to a good area flash through his mind but instead Spurlock decides that the most productive thing he can do is head out to the Middle East in an attempt to locate and capture terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden.I really liked Super Size Me. It used a gimmick to build an effective and engaging documentary into the importance of diet and the impact of poor eating. So whenever his latest film came out I had assumed that the overall product would be the same even if the topic was much larger. The film just about starts out this way as Spurlock essentially uses his gimmick as an introduction to a couple of the countries of the Middle East where he superficially explores politics and discovers, hey, they're just people – just like us yeah? OK, so far so basic but I am assuming that he is just easing us into something right? Well, no. Actually what the film does is become more and more about the gimmick and less and less about anything of substance. Ultimately what we end up with is lots of bemused reactions to the question "where is Osama?" It is a real shame but for some reason Spurlock has aimed his film at people who do not get access to any news coverage outside of their own country. Maybe this is me being snobbish though, maybe lots of people do think that the Middle East contains nothing but goats and people who would happily die if only they could kill one Western Infidel™ at the same time. Well, for those people this film might blow your mind but honestly it is just so basic that I doubt even those with zero world view will not be engaged by Spurlock's film.The conclusion of the film suggests that Spurlock has learnt a lesson but, if that is the case, I have to wonder why he couldn't work it out to let us into it as well. The film cries out to be taken in hand in the editing room and really pulled into a structure that works – even if it means using less of the "on-location" footage than you would like. Sadly this doesn't happen either and the film gets more and more basic as it goes on, sinking into the gimmick and losing site of any chance to make intelligent points, educate or challenge the viewer. Could have been an interesting and insightful film but instead is just a fairly pointless mess of wasted potential.

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.http://eattheblinds.blogspot.com/