Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Kodie Bird True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Roland E. Zwick 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.

fwomp Not quite up to Morgan Spurlock's superlative documentary SUPER SIZE ME, WHERE IN THE WORLD IS OSAMA BIN LADEN is still topical and interesting. Where Super Size Me had a distinct focus, this newest documentary loses that. Let me explain...Initially set up as a means to make the world a safer place for Morgan, his mate, and their future child, Morgan sets out to find bin Laden so that he can help the world become a safer place. Knowing that the U.S. has spent billions of dollars and countless soldier hours looking for this elusive, tall, dialysized jihadist, Morgan figures maybe all it'll take is one determined future father.Scouring the globe as if he were Carmen Sandiego (Everyone gets that analogy, right? No? Look it up), Spurlock becomes a fearless explorer in and around the Middle East, searching for this dangerous killer. But what starts out as a journey of righteousness turns more into a discovery of the differences that divide the Muslim world from itself, from western religious doctrine, and from the policies of the U.S.. This is where things went a bit haywire for the film. Although most viewers will probably be forgiving of this since journeys like this often lead down other paths, it still felt awkward as Spurlock jumped around between political dignitaries, religious fanatics (on both sides), and U.S. ground-based troops in Afghanistan and how they felt about the war effort.It is commendable that Spurlock used animation (like the aforementioned Carmen Sandiego) to get his point across. The silliness of the animation was meant to show how crazy his quest might seem to us but, in the end, it comes across as something he simply had to do ...if not for his future kid, then for himself and the rest of us who live his experience vicariously.The ending is a pretty big letdown and it didn't line-up very well with the beginning of the film. Seeing the alternate ending on the DVD, I really feel it would've been a much better true ending to the documentary.Still, this is a very topical issue that shows not just one man's quest for answers, but a challenge to the U.S. that shows how close one man can come to finding Osama. Perhaps the U.S. military really doesn't want to find this madman. What reason would we have then for staying over there? Oil? Of course not!

pjmbdm This movie is a must see for everyone. I expected a comedy which it was in many instances but it was mostly educational with lots of questions and answers that everyday people would ask of everyday people in these Middle Eastern countries. I like the narrative that Morgan used and his easy way put most people at ease, since he obviously was American and I'm sure many people may not have trusted him immediately. Seeing him go to many different countries was also interesting, watching those who would not speak to him at all, even being rude with yelling and shoving, which truly surprised me since he was so earnest and open and very accepting. That was in Israel and that made me feel sad and concerned by the fact that we cannot find peace or understanding if we cannot even talk and ask questions of each other. The movie made me feel like I was traveling with Morgan and interacting with the local people so I very much enjoyed this. I wish every American would see this movie since Muslim people have been so demonized by our government when all they really want is what we want also. I liked this movie so much that I just bought it after seeing the rental.

movedout When Albert Brooks tried to reconfigure a massive cultural chasm into chuckles in the meta-comic "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World", he admitted markedly failure in finding common ground – Americans weren't ready to laugh, but more importantly, Muslims weren't ready. This was way back in 2005 when the War on Terror still had that new car smell. Now, Morgan Spurlock of "Super Size Me" fame follows Brooks' muddled footsteps into oblivion as he looks for cheap stunts in the Muslim world. Not for any sort of truth or insight, but vulgar shtick. To call this a documentary or even a docu-comedy would seem fallacious to the standings of both genres.Spurlock just isn't as interesting or humorous a personality as he assumes himself to be, which only serves to antagonise the idea of its premise being an odyssey into the treacherous abyss to find the world's most wanted man with only Spurlock as tour guide. He frames this sudden epiphany of a "dangerous post-9/11 world" with his wife getting pregnant. It's a faux-earnest set-up – interspersed with ridiculous allusions to his impending fatherhood and his superfluous wife's presence in the film when it cuts away back home – that becomes increasingly embarrassing as the film wears on, especially when it starts to become an excuse for Spurlock's failures and insecurities over his ill-conceived mission.Approaching this staged existential quandary from a place of blissful ignorance towards the Muslim world, Spurlock feigns mock surprise at how different the Muslim population is compared to America's perception of it was – they aren't all violent terrorists! Cut to Spurlock's histrionic astonishment over that nugget of information. And just as how easily he made his mock-realisation that a constant stream of fast food led to a death wish seem almost a quaint discovery, Spurlock leads the audience to think that he's doing some bold investigative work here by superficially interviewing the hoi polloi of the Gaza Strip and so-called relatives of Osama Bin Laden in Egypt. He makes his unexpected ejection from an Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood in Israel become his glib counterpoint to the idea that Muslims aren't bad eggs, but that Middle Eastern religiosity is just plain screwy and insular.Spurlock frequently pollutes his geographical opportunity into pure performance. He makes a dog and pony show about the sociopolitical strife in the region when he obviously knows better. His rehearsed, pandered surprise at the world outside of Manhattan shows a man who doesn't think squat of his audience's own comprehensions on the Middle East since 9/11 and his film ends up becoming just as shallow as his phony-baloney egoist brand of "documentaries".And only Spurlock seems equipped to turn his cultural ignorance into cultural arrogance – completing his transformation into a boorish man-with-a-camera into a Michael Moore-ish buffoon oblivious to his own chicanery. He insincerely coheres his film into a single, predictably trivial idea that these Middle-Easterners are just like us – from their love of family to their ultimate pursuit of peace on their land. Except Spurlock doesn't really believe that. To him, they are like us but they aren't really. His entire self-centred view of the Middle East engenders the film as a wholly facetious work of manipulation and even more egregiously, is ultimately condescending to the very subjects Spurlock explicitly extols at the end of his film.Perhaps we get the real glimpse of Spurlock as a person when he deigns to ask a jocular Egyptian man whether he was about to blow up his car or when he dons distinctively Arabic garb and starts randomly assaulting Saudi Arabian women in the mall about Bin Laden's whereabouts. It is a particularly contemptible redneck hustle that only reveals Morgan Spurlock as the sort of Ugly American that his Middle Eastern interviewees denounce as the true cause of their cultural discordance. Who can blame them?