Spot the point
Deborah Ross
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
12A, Nationwide OK, we’re busy people, so straight to the point on this one, and yet I’m already struggling, because there isn’t any point to get straight to. This is a pointless film. It is sans point, has zilch point, scores nul points in the point department. This is a shame. There have been greater shames, but it is still a shame. It’s American director– impresario Morgan Spurlock’s follow-up to Supersize Me, that strangely riveting and entertaining documentary about getting sick and fat on McDonald’s food, but this is nothing like. ‘I need to try to understand what drives an Osama Bin Laden,’ he says at the outset. And then, for the film’s entire 90 minutes, he fails even to address the issue, never mind come up with an answer. I’ve been more riveted and entertained putting on my socks.
The film’s starting point — hurrah; a point! — is that Spurlock’s wife is pregnant and he is worried about terrorism and the sort of world they will be bringing a child into even though, once the baby arrives, he won’t give a stuff about the world because he’ll care only about sleep. Still, there is no telling some people. So, fretting about global instability, he sets off on a quest to find Osama; a quest that takes him to all the terrorist hot spots: Egypt, Morocco, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, with each country’s visit accompanied, at least, by a consistent level of insight: ‘We’ve been in Egypt, talking to people who are real people, just like you and me.’ Seriously, I think my goldfish, Bubbles, is probably capable of more insight. (‘I so am,’ he has just confirmed. ‘You’d better believe it.’) Anyway, the film’s first scenes see Spurlock prepare for the four-month trip — called ’Operation Special Delivery’, as his main mission is to get home in time for ‘Operation Baby Spurlock’ — with vaccinations and an absurd class in survival training, all told in the form of a video game, which is actually quite fun. It may even be the best bit. But then he’s off. His approach involves interviewing the proverbial man in the street, rather than world leaders, which is fair enough but, as his most frequently asked question is ‘Do you know where I might find Osama Bin Laden?’ and no one ever responds with: ‘Yes, as it happens, I do. He’s in the cupboard under my stairs,’ it’s all fantastically boring. True, the question is a jokey question but, after not being enlightened for the 20th time, you’d think Spurlock would realise that it wasn’t paying its way. Other lowlights include calling all the Bin Ladens in a Saudi phone book — they’ve all changed their numbers — or appearing in Arab garb on the back of a camel, for no reason whatsoever.
There are a few enlightening moments — the Orthodox Jews who round on him in Tel Aviv; the woman who argues that the Muslim world hates Osama as much as anyone ‘because he legitimised a US presence in the Middle East’. But Spurlock is no Michael Moore, lacking his talent not just for dramatic structure, but also for mockery. He is a spineless farceur, as well as a poor detective. OK, the film isn’t really about finding Osama, but it isn’t about anything else, either.
Worst of all, though, are the continual updates on Mrs S. via his nightly phone calls — ‘I love you too, honey’ — as well as shots of Mrs S. growing bigger by the minute while hoping Mr S. will be back in time. This seems almost shockingly narcissistic, as if they are the first couple ever to have a baby. I guess that if you write and direct your own films there is no one to shake you and say, ‘Listen, people have been having babies for 600 million years. There is nothing special about it. Birds do it, bees do it, and even educated fleas do it!’ They should have simply got over themselves.
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? is like a Spot lift-the-flap book. Is Osama behind the sofa? No. Is Osama under the bed? No. Is Osama in the wardrobe? No. And just what is the point of books of this kind if Spot isn’t under any of the flaps? Spurlock never finds Osama (I think you’d have heard if he had; so I’m not spoiling anything) and even turns back at a border in Pakistan which warns foreigners not to go any further because ‘it’s not going to change things for my kid’. Spurlock’s conclusion, at the end, is only that ‘there are a lot more people out there like us than there are like him’. Well, yes, because if there were a lot more people out there like him rather than like us, there wouldn’t be any world left to worry about. And everything has moved on from Osama anyway. Even he may not be the point any more.
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