Where In the World Is Osama Bin Laden? concludes with Elvis Costello’s 1978 recording of the classic Nick Lowe “new wave” anthem “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding.” It’s too bad the film didn’t start there, or that it didn’t think to take its primary cue from the song instead of the newsbites that inspired the movie’s title. As it is, the movie neither lives up to its title nor earns the gravitas of Costello’s whiskey-soaked emo.

The strongest recommendation I have regarding Spurlock’s latest film is: beware the bait-and-switch. If you come into this film expecting to learn a dang thing about the actual living-and-breathing man named “Osama Bin Laden,” you’re going to the wrong movie… and you might leave pretty ticked at how you’ve been fleeced of your ten or twelve bucks (plus refreshments).

If, however, you go in properly prepared to witness a goofily gentle travelogue—think, maybe, of something like Michael Palin crossed with Michael Moore, or Rick Steves crossed with Mike Rowe—that only pays lip service to searching for the Big Baddie, then you might do all right with this lighter-than-cheese-puffs com-e-doc.

The basic setup is that Spurlock, in his long-awaited follow-up to SuperSize Me!, is mulling over how to approach a film about bin Laden… and his wife becomes pregnant. In the wittily-animated (if potentially scandalously offensive) prologue, Spurlock muses about how the world has become such a dangerous place, and what role he might play in making it safer for his gestating MiniSizedMe… like, what about ridding the world of bin Laden? Or, at least, his influence.

So as Spurlock prepares to go underground to root out bin Laden, he gets survival training and grows out his beard. And, of course, as we watch his beard grow, we go along with him on an After School Special tour of Muslim-peopled countries, where we get civics lessons about how the specters of both bin Laden and the meddlesome U.S. international policies—you know, “yesterday’s freedom-fighter buddy is today’s corrupt despot” shake-hands-with-the-devil tactics—have overshadowed the thinking of normal average folks who are more or less just like you and me. That is, people around the world who just want to get on with their lives: have jobs, get married, have kids, retire peacefully in some form or fashion… and die in something other than a firebombing.

So here’s a sampling of the things that Spurlock hears as he travels:

“People have learned to expect a lot less from the U.S.” —Egypt

“I hear that [Americans] want to eradicate Islam.” —Morocco

“[American foreign policy] is the same as globalization.” —Jordan

“No religious person should be in politics.” —Saudi Arabia

“We create these demons… and we feed them.” —Saudi Arabia

Spurlock does encounter the fringes of some scary things along the way: ultra-conservative and literally pushy Jews in Israel; thought-control schools in Arabia; freshly-shot Taliban in Afghanistan; and marketplace denial of reality in Pakistan.

But really… Spurlock never goes out of his way to talk to any really scary people, like known relatives of bin Laden, any of the U.S. spooks or Special Ops folks who have actually been involved in a real search, or cats like Jacques Vergès who hang out with and legally represent known terrorists. No, Spurlock rather incomprehensibly wanders along streets and through foreign shopping malls asking complete strangers, “Do you know where bin Laden is?” Seriously. It’s not very funny, and after a while starts feeling pretty pathetic. We get the picture pretty early on: Spurlock is really not all that interested in finding bin Laden.

He is, however, interested in a better world—and that’s admirable. He’s idealistic enough to ask, “What kind of a world do we want to live in?” And he’s brave enough to put himself on the line to at least do his part. And on that point he’s to be congratulated… and for forking over the bucks to include “Peace, Love and Understanding” on the soundtrack.

But as I recommended to Spurlock when I talked with him last November: if you really want to get a taste of what it’s like to swim with the sharks, rent Terror’s Advocate, the 2007 documentary about Vergès and his associates.

I don’t think Spurlock has seen it yet; he’s still too starry-eyed… and good for him.

Where In the World Is Osama Bin Laden? is rated PG-13 for “some strong language.” Whatever. The Visitor, also newly released, carries the same rating for the same reason—and once again I must protest. It’s a travesty that these films carry the same rating as films like Norbit. Gimme a break.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Greg attended a press screening of Where In the World Is Osama Bin Laden?