Camp Hideout

Grade: C+

If Frank Capra directed a Nickelodeon show (like Hey Dude or Salute Your Shorts), and then beat up dumb gangsters at the end, Home Alone style, you’d have Camp Hideout. When I first saw the title, I thought it would be a Friday the 13th type dead teenager romp. But no, it’s a wholesome family friendly movie featuring adolescent puppy love, and the two stupidest criminals since Pesci and Stern. It has heart, I laughed a couple times, and I think the worst word spoken is “darn it.”

Noah (Ethan Drew) has gotten himself in some hot water. He’s on the run from two guys that he stole a handheld gaming console from. We never find out exactly what it does, or why they want it back so badly, but the whole movie revolves around it. Whatever. It’s a MacGuffin. It’s just like the desperately-sought-after flash drive from The Retirement Plan. Noah’s social worker Selena (Amanda Leighton) recommends he come to the week-long camp, where she is a counselor. He reluctantly goes, as he is one strike away from being sent to juvie.

Camp Hideout has its moments. A prospective love interest is provided without much follow-through. I enjoyed Isabelle Almoyan as counselor “Becky with a B.” She says it’s a game. I’m not sure what the game is, other than calling everyone “their first name with its starting letter,” but I suppose that’s the joke. Tyler Kowalski has some funny bits as Oliver, a verbose, heavyset pimple-faced camp veteran. He reminded me of the know-it-all kid on The Polar Express. And Christopher Lloyd is increasingly mush-mouthed but always fun to see as a grumpy old codger who the kids eventually bring out of his shell, and expose his sweet side.

The bumbling bad guys get taken away by the authorities, but not before succumbing to every possible booby trap throughout the camp – just like our beloved Wet Bandits. There’s a tiny bit of the Christian element that emerges rather tentatively, as if the filmmakers weren’t quite confident as to whether or not it would fly. Camp Hideout wasn’t for me, but maybe it will be for your kids. Your really little kids.

Grade: C+