Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? (2008)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2008
Running Time	90:01
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Morgan Spurlock
Studio Distributor	Icon Entertainment	Starring	Morgan Spurlock George Bush Alexandra Jamieson Dick Cheney Donald Rumsfeld Daryl Isaacs Laken James Spurlock
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Anxious expectant father Morgan Spurlock, of Super Size Me and 30 Days fame, sets his sights on hunting down today's bogeyman, Osama Bin Laden, in a desperate attempt to protect his future family. That is Spurlock's excuse for a broad theatrical documentary on the US foreign policy and Islamic terrorism, at any rate.

    Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden follows the same style of presentation as Super Size Me, albeit with an obviously more generous budget. Spurlock travels through Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, playing the dumb American in search of answers as he interviews a variety of friends and relatives of known terrorists and average citizens of the countries he visits. Between interview segments, simplified explanations of the various bits of background politics are provided along with amusing animation. It all makes for good entertainment, but the explanations lack depth and the investigations fail to provide any real insight into the situation or the location of the man in question.

    In the end, about all Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden has to say adds up to nothing more than common sense - by far the majority of Muslims are decent human beings and governments all over the place are hypocritical and corrupt. At least Spurlock has an entertaining way of putting it.

Video

    The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The film looks to have been shot digitally and the image reasonably clear and sharp throughout, particularly given that so much of it was shot on location (and in some hairy ones at that). There is a good level of shadow depth. The colour looks quite natural.

    The video appears rather jerky throughout the entirety of the film, which appears to be due to to some heavy interlacing artefacts. The interlacing effect can easily be seen by pausing the video. The effect appears worst when there are subtitles on screen (probably due to the subtitles being completely static, but the surrounding video being heavily artefacted). Many scenes feature noticeable edge enhancement, along with corresponding halos around interview subjects. There is no sign of film artefacts in the transfer.

    There are hard-coded English subtitles for anyone speaking in a foreign language or speaking English with the slightest accent, but not control available over the subtitles (let alone an ability to turn them on for all dialogue).

    This is a single layered disc, so no layer change interrupts the feature.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    A single English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (224 Kbps) audio track is present for the film.

    The dialogue is clear and easy to understand. The audio and video look to be well synchronised throughout.

    There is nothing really in the way of music save for a few well placed songs that play rather briefly, particularly the country rock "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden" theme.

    The audio is a very flat stereo mix, which seems unlikely to have been the film's theatrical presentation no matter how basic the surround usage. Admittedly there isn't much call for surrounds in a documentary, although this particular documentary has a number of high-concept animatics that would have been really enhanced with decent sound. The subwoofer barely registers anything in the rather dull mix.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Nothing. Nada. Zip.

    The Region 1 edition of the film includes about 15 minutes of additional interview footage and an alternate ending, making it the clear winner of this comparison.

    An entertaining documentary that really has nothing to say. The DVD presentation is mediocre and the disc is bare bones, however.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall