Reviewed by Ariane Sherine
Stars Morgan Spurlock & Alexandra Jamieson
Written by Jeremy Chilnick & Morgan Spurlock
Produced by Morgan Spurlock & Korelan Cone
Cinematography by Daniel Marracino
Certification UK 12A | US PG-13 | Australia M
Runtime 93 minutes
Directed by Morgan Spurlock
Yo dudes — it’s Spurlock Holmes! Fresh from stuffing his face, he’s got a bun in the oven (well, his wife has) and so “wants to make the world safe for his unborn child” by finding Osama bin Laden. (And, I guess, turning him in to the US authorities — just finding the bloke isn’t going to make much difference, unless Our Morg’s aiming to talk him out of his evil ways).
Armed with just a cameraman, a driver and an interpreter, the thoroughly reasonable everyman travels the Middle East, ostensibly in search of Badman himself, as though the latter has some kind of vendetta against Spurlock’s foetus.
And so we go to Israel, where angry Orthodox Jews attempt to thwart Spurlock’s Indiana Jones adventure; to Saudi, where frightened schoolboys give a heartbreakingly mute interview; and to Afghanistan, where the villagers laugh, “You want to go to Tora Bora? You want your head cut off?!” All these things happen independently of Spurlock rather than because of him; he provides no insight, no reasoning, no viewpoint other than the most banal and simplistic. He’s resolutely likeable, and clearly sharp — I was waiting for an impassioned commentary, which sadly never came.
However, just by asking simple questions in demonised lands, Spurlock humanises their inhabitants. So, leaving aside the issue of “what kind of lame-ass leaves his wife alone for months while she’s pregnant with her first child?”, the real question is this — is WITWIOBL worth watching? If you’re a xenophobic American who thinks everyone in the Middle East is evil: absolutely. Hopefully, you’ll come away ashamed of yourself. If you’re after an hour and a half of mildly funny and sporadically interesting viewing: perhaps, though there are better contenders. But if you’re looking for an answer to either the eponymous question or almost any other, you’re not going to find it here. Sorry.
• Official Site
• Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? at IMDb