Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?

Morgan Spurlock's Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? is the distillation of at least five films that circumnavigate the figure of Bin Laden (here sometimes referred to as OBL). Any one of the films might have succeeded, but with internecine struggles between them breaking out periodically, the audience can get the vapors trying to guess which of the five is being viewed at any given moment.

In the search, Spurlock (of Super Size Me fame), director, co-writer, and producer, frames his quest as an attempt to prepare a better world for his soon-to-be-born child as he visits sequentially the most likely places where OBL might be hiding and awaiting Spurlock's captive embrace: Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Afghanistan (including Tora Bora), and Pakistan.

The opening of the film, an extremely clever, bright, and captivating song-and-dance sequence of a rapping, spastic OBL and cohorts seems to promise the tone of a flip mockumentary of Spurlock's search. But soon, with the introduction of the imminent birth of his child -- and his wife's evident real fear for his safety -- we are introduced to the not-so-flip reality, the quest for the arch-fiend. We then gyrate between the five possible films. First, the earnest "we must make the world safe from OBL" take. Second, the informative (occasionally even trying to be impartial to the point of interviewing the uncle of OBL's second-in-command). Third is the arch "let's be crazy and looney" Monty Pythonesque spin--at Tora Bora, Spurlock leans into a cave and stagewhispers, "Osama, where are you?" Fourth is the inspirational why are we all fighting, why are we doing this, we are the world sermon. Fifth is the chronicle of his son's gestation and birth while he is whirlagigging through the Middle East and his wife's constant worries about him.

While there are many fine, funny, and dramatic moments in this film(s), Spurlock finally cannot commit to a single "voice": he floats between jokester, teacher, father-to-be, professor, and preacher/activist. And, without being a spoiler, he surrenders. (Though even before this, all five films collide in the scene when Spurlock gets to use -- in practice -- a shoulder missile rocket and all but spells out, "How cool!"

So, what was the point?

                                                              Howard Buck