Critic Reviews

• Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter

  This family film is willing to tackle important issues such as burgeoning sexuality, alcoholism and a troubled home life but does so in a bland and unconvincing story.

• Peter Schilling, Minneapolis Star Tribune

  This might be palatable if it weren't also fraught with leaden direction and horrible acting -- it's a painful thing when William Baldwin's the best actor you've got.

• Lael Loewenstein, Variety

  Feels like an homage to a bygone era of moviemaking.

• Kevin Carr, 7M Pictures

  While ninety percent of the film is good for the family, there is ten percent that I will caution parents on.

• Brian Orndorf, DVDTalk.com

  Film crumbles when the oppressive frowns are released, turning an amiable diversion into a chore to finish, due in great part to the sheer weight of the distress. The movie never fully recovers from the sour detour.

• Jeff Vice, Deseret News, Salt Lake City

  The shame here is, it's not a terrible movie. It's just pretty amateurish in terms of the direction and some of the performances.

• Sean Means, Salt Lake Tribune

  The happy Hardy Boys action takes an uncomfortable back seat to low-rent melodrama.

• Wade Major, Boxoffice Magazine

  The story mechanics don't always work-the film vacillates between feeling heartfelt and clumsy.

• Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), St. Paul Pioneer Press

  A proud throwback to '70s family melodramas, such as Where the Red Fern Grows, Plumm seems slow, melodramatic and contrived when compared to contemporary movies.

• Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly

  First-time director Caroline Zelder brings warmth and restraint to this tale of Montana child detectives on the case of a beloved frog puppet that, to the devastation of its over-invested owner-operator (Henry Winkler), goes missing.

Read all 10 critic reviews