The Bobby DeBarge Story

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.

The Positive: I am glad that some Black actors had the opportunity to work

The Negative: (1) hideous wigs (they have a life of their own); (2) a disjointed story with more holes than a piece of swiss cheese; (3) Poor editing...the story was all over the place (4) Poor script -- I don't think the actors had much of a story to work with.

I was a huge Switch fan in the 1970s. After I watched the movie, I was left asking "What did I just watch"? May Mr. DeBarge rest in peace, because he didn't seem to have any during his life.

This movie was pretty good. I think this movie should have included more information about Bobby DeBarge BEFORE 1980. There was way too much time spent on the group 'DeBarge' and not enough time spent on the group 'Switch' with Bobby as lead singer. Bobby's drug use played an important part in the downfall of Switch. In terms of hair, the wigs could have been better. Roshon Fegan's portrayal of Bobby DeBarge was pretty good, so I wasn't bothered much by the bad wigs. I don't understand how some could give this movie a rating of 1/10 stars. For those who've not seen the movie, please take the time to watch it. If you're not too distracted by the wigs worn, I'm sure you'll think 'The Bobby DeBarge Story' is a pretty good movie.

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.

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.