California Dreamin’ (Endless) 2 stars
Armand Assante, Razvan Vasilescu, Jamie Elman
Directed by Cristian Nemescu
One knows why California Dreamin' (Endless) has the word “Endless” attached to the film: It is interminable.
The two-hour-35-minute movie is about a train stuck in Romania, but the movie wobbles all over the place. It goes in vast circles very slowly.
It does have moments of humanity and communication, and it has humor, young love and fervent dreams. It also has the relevant theme that America empowers old rivalries and then scrams.
But indulgence, tedium and contrivance prevail. It proves that allegory can get stalled. It makes one yearn for Milos Forman's The Firemen's Ball (1967).
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California Dreamin' (Endless) has a mystique about it since its Romanian writer-director Nemescu died in an auto accident shortly after making it.
The plot is that a train, commanded by a U.S. Marine Captain, taking NATO military equipment to Kosovo is crossing Romania. It gets halted in the village of Capalnita by the local station master when it doesn't have the proper customs papers.
For five days bureaucracy and the stickler station master— who also is corrupt—keep the train from moving.
Assante, as the captain, gives the movie some weight, until he has to render a hackneyed speech to the local townspeople.
Assante's personal scenes with Vasilescu (who plays the station master Doiaru) have the ring of truth.
Much of the rest of California Dreamin' (Endless) has the clang of contrivance.