The Bobby DeBarge Story

I feel that this movie was a bit short for my liking. Perhaps it could have been 2 hours long. For one thing, it fails to give the viewer a glimpse of Bobby DeBarge's relationship with his band mates Switch. It came across as a DeBarge film more than simply the life of Bobby DeBarge. However, this is not to state that one ought to have removed family members entirely considering that DeBarge would not have existed without Bobby DeBarge's input. Still, I feel that it could have been better.

The acting was terrible. Even the continuity in this film was all off. The actual Bobby DeBarge story is a sad and beautiful story, But this film makes it look like a joke. My four star rating was being very generous.

This telling of the story of Bobby DeBarge was literally all over the place. Even when I hit rewind on a couple of scenes I was left saying, "wait, did I miss...". The sequencing was absolutely awful. If you didn't know the story of Bobby Debarge you still wouldn't clearly understand based off of this movie. In their defense, I think they tried to squeeze too much information into the tiny time slot that then got further reduced by numerous commercials. I would like to see it retold in the same way the New Edition story was told over a series of days. This movie did not provide a clear overall picture of the family. Why not do a DeBarge story in its entirety; a mini-series?

I'm going to skip over whoever is responsible for the wigs in this movie because that would be an entire paragraph on its own.

That headline "Wasted Potential" not only suits Bobby Debarge, but also the people in charge of directing & writing the script for this movie. This movie was a mess from beginning to end. It starts off with him dying & then goes to pretty much his last show with Switch. We never see the struggles of why he left home, the group forming & him developing a drug addiction we're just put into it. I believe the biggest mistake was making it about only Bobby & trying to stretch an essentially one hit wonder into a two hour movie. It can be done like the Frankie Lymon story "Why Do Fools Fall In Love", but in order for that to happen you need talented writers which this movie didn't seem to have. In the end a lot of scenes seem to drag on only to kill time & what is there is pretty dull & boring. The characters they selected for roles such as Bobby, Berry Gordy, Janet, LaToya & Jermaine Jackson were laughable & honestly didn't fit the roles they were trying to portray. If you've ever seen the TVOne Unsung story for DeBarge then you've seen a better version of this movie. Because all they did was touch on that, but never fully tell the stories. In the end you never feel like you went on a proper journey to learn this person due to bad writing & story telling.

If you're from that era (70s-80s) I believe you'll like the movie more for your memories of the DeBarge's (Bobby, Switch, El,...) will carry you through. I watched the entire movie in almost one sitting, which means it kept my interest. And yes some of the actors weren't Oscar Worthy:) and though the clothing, hair, and vehicles too were accurate those wigs looked like OUR actual hair back then AFTER you awoke after an allnight bender:) And I must have forgotten James (DeBarge) went full BarKays with his hair back then:)

The poster(s) that suggested this should've been done similar to NE (Temptations too) is right on the $$s. But I bet they couldn't because it'd priced it out of production (music rights alone:)) but clearly that's why this movie came up short.

And another reason they may not have ventured into more time/detail, they'd had problems keeping it PG13. The trials and tribulations of Bobby and his family are downright biblical and not in a good way. The books and TV bios cover it in all its horrid detail, ironically very entertaining, just not pleasant.

Summary, IF you're of that time and/or a fan of Switch, DeBarge,..worth checking out Bobby's Story.