With his disarming "redneck" grin and his even-tempered even-handedness, we could do a lot worse than have somebody like Morgan Spurlock lead the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

But the director of "Super Size Me" shows something else — guts — in his sober-minded but comical, skeptical but never cynical documentary, "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?"

He asks that funny question in some parts of the world where most Americans would be afraid of visiting, much less asking that question. His answers surprised him and almost certainly will surprise you, too.

Spurlock's film begins with a pregnancy. His partner, Alex, the one so worried about all those Big Macs he ate, is having his child. "What kind of world will this baby be born in?" he frets. What can he do about that world, something that would maybe get him out of the East Village during all those tedious pre-natal birth-coaching lessons, maybe something that would also make a cool movie?

Why, hunt down Terror Suspect No. 1! "If the CIA and the FBI can't find him, I'm going to have to," he says, just to make the world safe for his unborn child.

Spurlock starts out flippant, pasting bin Laden's face on a dancer in a music video of "Can't Touch This," depicting Middle East history and conflict in animated video-game graphics. He visits his doctor for inoculations for a long overseas trip into the developing world and consults with a self-defense specialist who does everything from training him on how to choose a safe place to sit in a restaurant to how to act after being kidnapped.

"Are you gonna convert to Muslim 'r not?" one rube dolled up as a terrorist demands.

And then Spurlock and his crew set out, meeting college students and street vendors in Egypt, rug merchants in Casablanca, "activists" and journalists in Jordan and Israel.

He goes to the last place bin Laden was seen, Tora Bora, Afghanistan, and even ventures into Pakistan, where experts believe the al-Qaida leader is hiding out.

His most hostile audience? Orthodox Jews in Israel curse him, bump him and have to be restrained by the Israeli army, just because he asks about the causes of the region's conflicts. The scariest interview subject is in Saudi Arabia. An imam who has just led a prayer calling for the destruction of America gives Spurlock the crazy eyes. Spurlock isn't the first to note that Islamic terrorism has its recruiting, ideological, financial roots firmly in that kingdom.

He does a ride-along with U.S. troops in Afghanistan, dines with a family in Morocco, sips coffee in a few Starbucks (and one Palestinian "Star & Bucks"), hears an awful lot of Muslims curse bin Laden and a few curse America.

"It's hard to see how damaged the reputation of the country I know and love has become," Spurlock says.

His movie has a good humor that sometimes crosses into cutesy, but his message comes through. Simply put, he's not Michael Moore. There's nothing snide or sarcastic in his approach. Yes, he's critical of the Bush administration, but he's willing to ask an Army officer what was lost when we didn't swarm over Afghanistan until we caught bin Laden in 2001, and he's willing to accept that answer. He can whoop it up in the grand redneck tradition after the rush of shooting a machine gun and a rocket launcher.

And he can discuss the evils of Israeli "settlement" activity (seizing Palestinian land) from the freshly bombed classroom of an Israeli school.

The ending is a bit of a cop-out, and the film has far fewer answers than questions. But Spurlock's sassy, smart and cutting little movie frames the conflict in a way that's both perfectly sane and perfectly silly.