Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?

To properly appreciate director Morgan Spurlock’s appealing but self-defeating new nonfiction concoction, just remember that you’ll be hearing about American foreign policy from the guy who filmed himself eating at McDonald’s for a month to see whether it’s bad for you. It begins with the news that Spurlock’s wife is pregnant, and the conveniently dramatic if reasonable question of whether ours is any kind of world into which to bring a child. Then Spurlock’s off, in a flash of expensive-looking spectacle, to the Persian Gulf—whose denizens turn out to be more or less decent human beings with hopes and fears and families to look after just like us. Did Spurlock really consider this a revelation? It’s an unfortunate, two-fold failure of nerve: first, the audacious comedian who could push his conceit to the extreme but couldn’t do it with a straight face; and second, the urban American liberal humanist who could probe the darkest corners of his world but still couldn’t get past his own comfort zone.