An out of work daytime TV presenter and an unpublished author devise a very simple get rich scheme - find and capture Osama Bin Laden and claim the US Government reward of $27million. Starting their search in West London they interview Muslim clerics, Hans Blix, an ex-member of the CIA and right through to the private ranch of George Bush in Texas.
Good satire is wonderful stuff - equally funny, insightful and sharp. Osama and US was billed as a satirical look at the search for Bin Laden but it was sadly mis-advertised. This is not satire, this is two public school boys who think they're being really clever but are really just being silly. The comedy is totally absent as it is just daft and not clever - the lowest point for me was when they tried to report to the UK Parliament that Osama could be Jesse Jackson because one man told them he looks a bit like him when shown a doctored photo...pathetic!
The show had potential simply because there is a lot of stuff that could be brought to light, but the makers manage to bring nothing new of interest out of this whole hour. Another example is they interview a man who has met him and the only thing they take from the interview was that Bin Laden once ate old cheese, this then becomes a running `joke' as they leave cheese in hotels etc where he may be hiding.
Campbell and Wilson show themselves to be without a real wit and were clearly aiming for a teenage audience who think that making adults look silly is the height of wit. Here the adults in the film don't even find them funny, most sort of sigh at their antics - the park keeper being the best making them both look like silly little boys!
Overall if you like satire then this will feel like a total waste of an hour. Nothing of interest comes out of it, not one laugh is had in the whole hour and the only conclusion to be had is that Channel 4 have obviously got used to Rory Bremner et al making satire look so easy that they thought that anyone could do it. How very wrong they were.
