When Joseph Smith obtained the plates, he did not bring them home right away. After getting them out of the ground, he hid them in the hollow of a log, and went back to get them later. I can't remember for sure why he did this, but I suppose he either thought he might have been followed (the locals wanted the gold and were willing to suspend disbelief long enough to get it if possible). When he came back later to get the plates out of the log, he was attacked by multiple men. Joseph suffered a dislocated thumb as a result of one of the attackers. Once getting the plates back to Joseph Smith Sr.'s house it was repeatedly moved. Joseph was prompted to do so by the Spirit, in part because the locals had resorted to witchcraft to discover the hiding place of the plates. They were kept in a chest, in a hollow in the hearth, under a floor panel in the barn, and after a witch discovered that location and the mob came for them, the plates were hidden under a pile of hay in the loft right above the floor panel where they had been hidden only hours prior.
They didn't go into a lot of detail showing this part of Church History in the movie, and in general the movies have breezed quickly through things I'd love to see given much more attention, but as far as I can tell from the first two (haven't seen the third one yet), the movies are historically accurate, apart from the fictional parts created for the books by Brother Lund.
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