Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden?

Synopsis: When news of his impending fatherhood hits Morgan Spurlock, he starts to think about the world his child will be born into. A world full of war, terrorism and fear. So he decides to do the best he can for his unborn kid, and track down Osama Bin Laden so that the world can become a better place. Because “If I’ve learned anything from big budget action movies it’s that complicated global problems are best solved by one lonely guy."

Morgan Spurlock is a funny guy. Half the reason Super Size Me was so good was that Morgan's personality is so engaging. So it's no surprise that most of the good to be had out of this documentary comes courtesy of him mugging for the camera. After undergoing basic self-defense training, which he manages to treat both seriously and as a joke, it's off to numerous dangerous places to trace the history of modern terrorism and try and locate the most wanted man in the world.

It's obvious from the get-go that Spurlock and his team are not actually all that interested in finding Osama. At the Q&A session at the Melbourne Film Festival, Morgan was asked what he would have done if he'd actually found him. He didn't really have an answer besides "Collect the reward money". But it was never really the intention. Instead, we get an entertaining travelogue, as Morgan and his cameraman travel to Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan talking to people on the street and asking them their opinions on the current state of the world. Even then, things can get risky, as he gets attacked in Israel by fundamentalist Jews and has his interviews cut short in Saudi Arabia. Some of the locations are quite disturbing. The centre square in Saudi Arabia where people are beheaded in the morning is where children play soccer in the afternoon. And his adventures in Afghanistan are somewhere between brave and foolhardy.

By the end you don't learn much you didn't already know, but then again you didn't need to be told that McDonald’s burgers are bad for your health either. The good of the film isn't so much in telling you things, it's in exposing you to a wide variety of interesting people. And the sense it creates of a global community, people with a common desire for a good and happy life, is the strength of the film. Don't go expecting to learn much about global politics, but expect to see that "those people" aren't very different from "us". It's hardly an earth shaking discovery, but it's still good to be reminded of it.

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