Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?

Following up his overrated and conveniently topical (in that pretentious Naomi Klein kind of way) docu-drama Super Size Me, which unearthed the shocking revelation that eating a lot of fat will in fact make a person fat, Morgan Spurlock again jumps on the bandwagon of the obvious with an exploration of Middle Eastern perspectives on America as a result of Western foreign policy. After a barrage of videogame animations and thematically repetitive interviews that become interesting only when an interview with two Saudi Arabian high school students is shut down for fear of exposing Western hatred as an educational faculty, the revelations that George W. Bush is a butt-hole and that uneducated religious nut-bars are easily manipulated are disclosed. Given that the only people who were not already aware of these informative gems are far more likely to watch a repeat episode of Dancing with the Stars than a documentary, the film essentially exists as a glib masturbatory emblem for idealistic college students to hold on their shoulders and naively quote verbatim. While people like to have their dominant belief systems reinforced as a means of self-congratulation and reaffirmation of purpose, a slightly more challenging or exploratory framework could have given Spurlock’s doc some much-needed oomph. Rather than simply finding out how people feel about America and their tendency to befriend only nations who share their disdain of whatever part of the world is causing them grief at that given time, some additional insight on why they feel that way could have provided more balance and depth. The DVD features an alternate ending with a computer animation of Morgan Spurlock and Osama Bin Laden having a showdown at the O.K. Corral, which is oddly appropriate given the backwoods John Wayne approach much of this "documentary” takes. Also included are deleted interviews with Saad Ibrahim (an Egyptian activist), former IRA leader Martin McGuinness, Israeli president Shimon Peres and three Saudi Arabian women. The latter interview is perhaps the most interesting but like the others, did not contextually flow with the trajectory of the film and was cut accordingly.