When Morgan Spurlock and his wife find out they are expecting a child in an unsafe world that faces multiple terrorist and environmental threats, Morgan decides to track down the world's most wanted and dangerous terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, undergoes self-defense training, takes all required medical shots, and sets out to travel to Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Afghanistan, Pakistan amongst others to try and locate the man who has managed to elude the American army for nearly a decade. His fears, generated due to biased media coverage that Muslims and Arabs are hostile, are laid to rest when he does encounter friendly, and quite refreshingly well educated, hospitable, politically matured men and women, who are well aware of America's faulty 'foreign policy', and do not subscribe to Jihad nor to the Taliban nor Osama's terror-tactics. But he does encounter some hostility, quite ironically, in two of America's allies — Israel and Saudi Arabia — and it is on the soil of Pakistan — his country's ally against the so-called War Against Terror — that he eventually hopes to find Osama. The questions still remain: will he able to find him where many others have purportedly failed? And most importantly will he be allowed to remain alive after finding him?
Genre(s): Documentary, War
Runtime: 90 minutes
Rating: 6.8/10 (3,211 votes)
Release Date: 21 January 2008
Country: France, USA
Languages: English, Arabic, French
Company: Weinstein Company, The
Sound: Dolby Digital
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for some strong language.
Director(s): Morgan Spurlock
Producer(s):
James Brabazon – co-producer
Jeremy Chilnick – producer
Korelan Cone – field producer
Adam Dell – executive producer
Steven Dell – executive producer
Matt Landon – executive producer (as Matthew Landon)
Joy Le Li – field producer
Julie Bob Lombardi – co-producer
Stuart Macphee – co-producer
Vincent Maraval – executive producer
Agnès Mentre – executive producer
Stacey Offman – producer
Karen Pelland – associate producer
John Sloss – executive producer
Morgan Spurlock – producer
Writer(s):
Jeremy Chilnick – (screenplay) &
Morgan Spurlock – (screenplay)
Cast:
Morgan Spurlock – Himself
George Bush – Himself (archive footage)
Dick Cheney – Himself (archive footage)
Daryl Isaacs – Himself (as Daryl M. Isaacs)
Alexandra Jamieson – Herself
Donald Rumsfeld – Himself (archive footage)
Laken James Spurlock – Himself
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Having watched "Supersize me", I decided to watch this movie thinkingit'd be just another "documentary" telling us what anybody with half abrain would already know. Fortunately, I was wrong. The movie is fullof small surprises, ranging from a highly divided Islamic world (inwhich even those who agreed with Osama's JIHAD, or with the war againsta power they think is oppressing them, were amazingly polite and wellmannered towards a "representative" of such oppression), to theincredibly hostile attitude of some orthodox Jews (supposedly ourallies?). A great documentary, not about geography, or about dataanybody can find on Wikipedia or the local library, but about people,what they think or feel, and why. If nothing else, the movie provesinvaluable just by demonstrating that, not only Muslims are not allevil, bloodthirsty fanatics, but that even those that agree with AlQaeda understand that Americans are not evil either, and are lucidenough to separate the American people from their government. That tome speaks about much better informed people than we give them creditfor.
When Albert Brooks tried to reconfigure a massive cultural chasm intochuckles in the meta-comic "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World", headmitted markedly failure in finding common ground – Americans weren'tready to laugh, but more importantly, Muslims weren't ready. This wasway back in 2005 when the War on Terror still had that new car smell.Now, Morgan Spurlock of "Super Size Me" fame follows Brooks' muddledfootsteps into oblivion as he looks for cheap stunts in the Muslimworld. Not for any sort of truth or insight, but vulgar shtick. To callthis a documentary or even a docu-comedy would seem fallacious to thestandings of both genres.
Spurlock just isn't as interesting or humorous a personality as heassumes himself to be, which only serves to antagonise the idea of itspremise being an odyssey into the treacherous abyss to find the world'smost wanted man with only Spurlock as tour guide. He frames this suddenepiphany of a "dangerous post-9/11 world" with his wife gettingpregnant. It's a faux-earnest set-up – interspersed with ridiculousallusions to his impending fatherhood and his superfluous wife'spresence in the film when it cuts away back home – that becomesincreasingly embarrassing as the film wears on, especially when itstarts to become an excuse for Spurlock's failures and insecuritiesover his ill-conceived mission.
Approaching this staged existential quandary from a place of blissfulignorance towards the Muslim world, Spurlock feigns mock surprise athow different the Muslim population is compared to America's perceptionof it was – they aren't all violent terrorists! Cut to Spurlock'shistrionic astonishment over that nugget of information. And just ashow easily he made his mock-realisation that a constant stream of fastfood led to a death wish seem almost a quaint discovery, Spurlock leadsthe audience to think that he's doing some bold investigative work hereby superficially interviewing the hoi polloi of the Gaza Strip andso-called relatives of Osama Bin Laden in Egypt. He makes hisunexpected ejection from an Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood in Israelbecome 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 pureperformance. He makes a dog and pony show about the sociopoliticalstrife in the region when he obviously knows better. His rehearsed,pandered surprise at the world outside of Manhattan shows a man whodoesn't think squat of his audience's own comprehensions on the MiddleEast since 9/11 and his film ends up becoming just as shallow as hisphony-baloney egoist brand of "documentaries".
And only Spurlock seems equipped to turn his cultural ignorance intocultural arrogance – completing his transformation into a boorishman-with-a-camera into a Michael Moore-ish buffoon oblivious to his ownchicanery. He insincerely coheres his film into a single, predictablytrivial idea that these Middle-Easterners are just like us – from theirlove of family to their ultimate pursuit of peace on their land. ExceptSpurlock doesn't really believe that. To him, they are like us but theyaren't really. His entire self-centred view of the Middle Eastengenders the film as a wholly facetious work of manipulation and evenmore egregiously, is ultimately condescending to the very subjectsSpurlock explicitly extols at the end of his film.
Perhaps we get the real glimpse of Spurlock as a person when he deignsto ask a jocular Egyptian man whether he was about to blow up his caror when he dons distinctively Arabic garb and starts randomlyassaulting Saudi Arabian women in the mall about Bin Laden'swhereabouts. It is a particularly contemptible redneck hustle that onlyreveals Morgan Spurlock as the sort of Ugly American that his MiddleEastern interviewees denounce as the true cause of their culturaldiscordance. Who can blame them?
If this movie knows where he is, there'll be international headlinesmade, and the filmmakers will get that US$25 million (or more?) bountythat is placed on his head. Of course it will be silly to presume thatthis film can find the answers to the multi-million dollar question, oreven come close to it, so just what was the intention?
Morgan Spurlock isn't new to controversy, having burst onto thedocumentary scene with his real life gorging on MacDonald's for everymeal in order to drive home the point that junk food really does junkyour well being. So for this new film of his, it stems from his desireto seek out the world's #1 wanted man, and ask him just what floats hisboat. He may be putting on his jester cap with his somewhat hilariousintroduction, but looking at the preparation with vaccination and evenattending some terrorism survival course, he's quite dead set in hismission to find that elusive man.
Until of course you realize that he's hitting all the relative safehavens for the most part, before venturing into the more likely placesin Afghanistan and Pakistan. But what he seeks to unearth is the MiddleEast's attitudes towards Americans, and it seems that the commonconsensus is that while they have nothing against the people, almosteveryone that Spurlock chose to showcase, has issues with the foreignpolicies. And from interviews with the average Joes, they sure haveissues with politics at home more than those that are from abroad.Spurlock also takes opportunity to slam the US foreign policy, and doesso through a hilarious animated sequence involving Uncle Sam and theStatue of Liberty herself, in what would be a realistic case ofsleeping with the wrong bedfellows.
Bringing the camera from Morocco to Saudi Arabia, and interview peoplefrom both the state of Palestine and Israel, what he had presented werecompelling arguments for and against, as well as plenty of moderateviews that seek to debunk the bulk of western media who find delight indemonizing those in the Middle East. Through the looking glass peeringat their everyday lives, the film comes to present the basic need forsurvival and providing for one's family, no matter one's geography,country, religion and culture. Naturally there were some feathersruffled, especially when dealing with closed cultures who clam up, orintolerant folks who have no qualms in using violence, but in general,this documentary serves to be rather tame.
Yes it's gimmicky in its title, and half the time you're not surewhether MXXSpulock will take that plunge and really head to where hewill likely find some inkling of positive leads, but what it hadpresented instead, is something more powerful that this world reallyneeds to reach out and have everyone taking a more tolerant attitudeand to understand one another a lot more, to avoid conflict. Thisshould be a world without strangers, and the documentary managed toshow just a glimmer of that hope.
When Morgan Spurlock discovers he is going to be a father his initialfeelings of joy are overcome with an intense worry about how he canprotect his child from the dangers of the world. Of course saving forthe future, educating from a young age and moving to a good area flashthrough his mind but instead Spurlock decides that the most productivething he can do is head out to the Middle East in an attempt to locateand capture terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden.
I really liked Super Size Me. It used a gimmick to build an effectiveand engaging documentary into the importance of diet and the impact ofpoor eating. So whenever his latest film came out I had assumed thatthe overall product would be the same even if the topic was muchlarger. The film just about starts out this way as Spurlock essentiallyuses his gimmick as an introduction to a couple of the countries of theMiddle East where he superficially explores politics and discovers,hey, they're just people – just like us yeah? OK, so far so basic but Iam assuming that he is just easing us into something right? Well, no.Actually what the film does is become more and more about the gimmickand less and less about anything of substance. Ultimately what we endup with is lots of bemused reactions to the question "where is Osama?"It is a real shame but for some reason Spurlock has aimed his film atpeople who do not get access to any news coverage outside of their owncountry. Maybe this is me being snobbish though, maybe lots of peopledo think that the Middle East contains nothing but goats and people whowould happily die if only they could kill one Western Infidel™ at thesame time. Well, for those people this film might blow your mind buthonestly it is just so basic that I doubt even those with zero worldview will not be engaged by Spurlock's film.
The conclusion of the film suggests that Spurlock has learnt a lessonbut, if that is the case, I have to wonder why he couldn't work it outto let us into it as well. The film cries out to be taken in hand inthe editing room and really pulled into a structure that works – evenif it means using less of the "on-location" footage than you wouldlike. Sadly this doesn't happen either and the film gets more and morebasic as it goes on, sinking into the gimmick and losing site of anychance to make intelligent points, educate or challenge the viewer.Could have been an interesting and insightful film but instead is justa fairly pointless mess of wasted potential.