Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden is the latest autobiographical odyssey by Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock. The film has a wry, snarky tone, so while Spurlock actually does tour the Middle East poking around for the world’s most wanted terrorist, the mission is understood to be secondary to the wider political comments the film attempts to make. If the mission to find Bin Laden is tongue-in-cheek, then what is the point of the very real dangers Spurlock subjects himself to?

Comparisons to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 are well deserved. Both rely heavily on darkly comic animated history lessons about the underbelly of American foreign policy. These segments are very entertaining, but also frustratingly simple. While it could be argued that Spurlock is intentionally over-simplifying complex histories in order to spoof the mainstream media’s penchant for cartoonish dichotomies, the animated segments instead prop up widely held beliefs with more humor than information. I can already hear undergrads at a party saying, “The CIA did some seriously messed up shit, didn’t you see that 90 second cartoon in that Morgan Spurlock movie?”

If the history lessons were disturbingly brief, there was another animated motif that provided much more effective satire. Once Spurlock’s mission to find Bin Laden has been established, the film takes on the structure of a video game, with each new location treated as the next level. The screen shows Spurlock and Bin Laden as avatars being selected for digital battle. A Mortal Combat-esque fight sequence follows, complete with health bars and hilarious special moves. The scene works on a purely comedic level, but also functions as smart commentary. The generation that is in the process of inheriting the War on Terror was raised on video games. For most of them, this is what a battle of good and evil looks like.

Apart from Spurlock’s sometimes counterproductive shenanigans, the other potentially troubling aspect of the film is Spulocks willingness to put himself at risk. Of course this is his schtick. The mission to eat 30 days worth of McDonalds in Super Size Me worked because if the food were safe, it would be a completely reasonable thing to do, but we all know it’s not. To raise the stakes in Where in the World, Spurlock goes on his Bin Laden hunt in the final six weeks of his girlfriend’s pregnancy. Putting himself in harm’s way for stunt filmmaking is already problematic, but the addition of a budding family back home makes it even more questionable.

Ultimately the choice to include the pregnancy saga is a strength of the film. Spurlock’s bravery certainly rides the fence with stupidity, but that gives the film a dynamism it wouldn’t otherwise have. While I really love documentaries like No End in Sight, there is something refreshing about a film that dispenses with the talking head in favor of a man-on-the-street gut-level approach. Spurlock’s quest, and frequently repeated inquiry about Bin Laden’s location, are inanely simple. But that’s precisely the point. In risking life and limb to solve a problem that’s far too big and complicated for a singular approach, he makes a convincing argument that our nation’s current approach to combating terror is debilitated by its simplicity.

Spoiler Alert: Spurlock does not find Bin Laden. When he gets close to an extremely dangerous region of Pakistan where many believe Bin Laden is hiding, he decides to go home to his girlfriend, whose due date is only days away. Many see this final twist as a failure of the film. Spurlock wusses out, he leaves the hard job for someone else to do. On the contrary, the final scene is the film’s strongest. Spurlock’s choice to simply go home to begin a family connects him with the countless people he interviewed across the region. People who want nothing but to live in peace and raise a family.