EW DVD Review: "Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden?"
By: Chris Nashawaty - Entertainment Weekly
Morgan Spurlock is lightweight Michael Moore. Of course, this is literally true to anyone who's laid their eyes on the two documentary filmmakers.
But what I'm talking about is how Spurlock, who first made a name for himself by eating McDonald's for a month in his film "Supersize Me," manages to trivialize just about every hot-button issue he touches.
His latest film is called "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?", and it couldn't be more naïve, simple-minded, and annoying. Spurlock, a New York hipster with a fu-manchu mustache, informs us at the beginning of his film that his wife is pregnant and that this has made him do some thinking. Right there, you know you're in trouble.
You see, Spurlock is concerned about the state of the world and how unsafe it is and how this mad-man leader of Al-Qaeda is still on the lam. So he gets an idea to travel to the Middle East and try to find him. Brilliant! We never had to lose those thousands of American soldiers after all.
Almost as offensive as Spurlock's satirical wit, are his skills as a filmmaker. After training in self-defense and learning how to say thank you in Arabic, Spurlock heads to Egypt, Morocco, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan. In between his man-on-the-street interviews with regular Arabs who it turns out want peace too and hate American foreign policy, not Americans, there's annoying little animated video-game sequences.
And then it's back to more interviews with more Arabs who, guess what, don't know where Bin Laden is either. When Spurlock finally gets to the tribal areas of Pakistan, he literally wanders into caves and calls out Osama's name, asking if he's in there. That's not a documentary, that's an ego trip.
I don't want to give the ending away, but here's one spoiler about "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden:" Morgan Spurlock doesn't find him. Now you don't have to rent it.
Now for a look at what else is new on DVD: in "Redbelt," David Mamet directs a flick about martial arts; in "Then She Found Me," Helen Hunt stars in and directs a drama about woman trying to have a baby; and in "The Office, Season Four" of Steve Carell's small-screen comedy hits stores.