Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?

"Instead of somber stories that mirror the audience's disgust and disillusionment, several filmmakers are taking askew or comical approaches to America's policy blunders and injustices." Anthony Kaufman previews the next round of post-9/11/Iraq war movies. Like Morgan Spurlock's Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?, they approach on lighter feet than those we've seen so far (or, more likely, have not seen).

Also in the Voice, J Hoberman: "An affable action hero in search of the planet's arch supervillain, Spurlock is less irritating than his obvious model, Michael Moore, but also less politically astute; assuming the role of a faux-naïf stranger in a strange land, he's more benign and not nearly as funny as unacknowledged analogue Sacha Baron Cohen."

Updated through 4/18.

"Tacking center and down, Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? finds Spurlock embellishing a faux-naïve average-Joe shtick that's about as irritating and intermittently head-up-the-ass as Moore's," writes Nicolas Rapold in the L Magazine.

New York's David Edelstein sums up a few of the lessons Spurlock learns on his road trip:

Egypt - our great ally as well as the birthplace of Mohamed Atta, Al-Zawahiri, and the Islamist-jihadist philosopher Sayyid Qutb - emerges as a prototype of repression: People hate the US because it funds the bogus democracy, but many hate bin Laden, too, for helping their leaders justify further repression. The Palestinians say they don't care for bin Laden because they're a secular society, but it doesn't hurt to have someone beating the drums against Israel - whose "settlers" subsequently tell Spurlock it's God's will that they plunk themselves down on disputed borders. Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Jews don't share their thoughts on bin Laden because they're busy putting their black hats over the camera lens and physically attacking Spurlock. It's an accomplishment to look more repulsive than the Taliban.

"Spurlock's aesthetic is opportunistic by design, but what makes the director's pandering to the masses so vulgar, almost sad, is that he obviously knows better," writes Ed Gonzalez in Slant. "Foregrounding his pop-cultural fixations, thus suffocating the flashes of insight he gives us into the lives of Middle Eastern people, Spurlock gives currency to the stereotype of the self-absorbed, globetrotting Ugly American."

For the Philadelphia Weekly's Sean Burns, the film is a "monumentally epic waste of time and an exercise in narcissism run amok... Even the most cursory knowledge of the world and current affairs renders the movie insultingly simple and wildly unnecessary."

Aaron Hillis talks with Spurlock for the IFC. His first question: "I'd love to hear your thoughts on John Anderson's Variety review from Sundance, which said the film 'serves up a rehash of others' 9/11 reportage, bin Laden biography, Islamic theology and suicide-bomber psychology.' What do you think your film brings new to the conversation?"

Updates, 4/17: "Spurlock ends the doc with a credit sequence showing candid images of his travels, set to Elvis Costello's '(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,' and the simple sincerity and anger of Costello's song blows away the 90 minutes of fake humanism that came before it," writes Steve Erickson in the City Paper.

"Unfortunately for Spurlock, the comedian-on-a-quest schtick has begun to wear thin," writes Felicia Feaster in the New York Press. "As the Iraq War enters its fifth year, the mugging, Borat-baiting approach to Bush-era incompetence has become a less reliable source of hilarity."

Shaun Brady talks with Spurlock for the Philadelphia City Paper.

Tom Roston meets Spurlock for the Los Angeles Times.

Updates, 4/18: "Spurlock, more so here than in Super Size Me, advances an essentially anti-political view of the world," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "It's impossible to disagree with much of what he says in Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden, but it's also impossible to learn anything about war, terrorism, religion, oil, democracy or any of the other topics a less glib, less self-absorbed filmmaker might want to tackle."

"The film pretends to discover that Arabs are people, too - but of course Spurlock knew that in the first place," writes Annie Wagner in the Stranger. "His film consistently condescends to the non-Americans it portrays while pandering to its American audience."

"Unlike Moore's movies, Spurlock's don't split their seams with ideas and nervous energy," writes Time's Richard Corliss. "For all their edifying political ambitions, they are closer to doper comedies, with Spurlock as a Cheech, Bill or Harold searching for a Chong, Ted or Kumar." And Frances Romero talks with Spurlock.

"At least Spurlock's messages are generally simple enough that it's easy to trust his motives and conclusions," writes Tasha Robinson at the AV Club. "But sometimes being on his side is a little embarrassing."

"So little new information and meaningful context are brought to the table in Morgan Spurlock's film that one truly wonders how the director felt comfortable presenting it to the American public as a finished product," writes S James Snyder in the New York Sun.

"[T]his well-meaning film probably would disappoint less were it titled 'We're Not So Different; Can't We All Just Get Along?'," suggests Michael Ordoña in the Los Angeles Times.

"For all his self-deprecation, Spurlock really does see himself as a holy fool, a crusading clown brave enough to risk his own body in order to make a point," writes Slate's Dana Stevens. "When that point was "Stop eating McCrap," there was a certain balance between the medium and the message (and Super Size Me did have real-world effects; after the film was released, McDonald's rescinded its super-sizing policy). But now that Spurlock has replaced burgers and fries with geopolitics and the war on terror, he seems less like an agitprop maverick than a gawking rube."

"Beneath his shtick Spurlock actually isn't a dumbass, even if his film yo-yo's from recycled Bush administration rhetoric at one end to we-are-the-world sentimentality on the other," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "The point he's striving for here is both simple and valid. If more Americans got out of our cubicle-to-couch cycles and went places, including the countries where we are told everyone hates us for our freedom, we'd find much more commonality than difference. We might begin to view the grand, mythic narratives that govern American foreign policy and domestic politics with some skepticism, or at least some perspective."

Posted by dwhudson at April 16, 2008 7:35 AM