Into this situation comes sweet, naive Susan (Donna Casey), a college student new to Cleveland who takes a waitressing job at Marv's. This doesn't sit well with Grace (Annie Kitral), the older head waitress who's having an affair with the married Marv. Susan, despite the warnings by the kindly Benny to be careful, goes on a date with hippie/guru Jim Morrison-wannabe Tommy (Kevin Horne), but things go really wrong when her roommate Faith (Trishalana Kopaitich) skips town - leaving Susan with no place to stay. The oldest cliche in the book -- an approaching thunderstorm -- provides the backdrop for the night when everyone's troubles arrive at critical mass, and the regulars down at Marv's recognize each other as family.

There might be a successful movie somewhere in The Nightowls of Coventry, but whether through budgetary shortcomings or just a failure on the part of screenwriter/director Laura Paglin to fully flesh out her ideas, the film just isn't substantial enough to rise above a fairly competent student film effort. The big themes are there, but they're only hinted at, teased at, suggested in The Nightowls of Coventry; there isn't any meat on their bones. The actors appear to be able to handle more, but there just isn't anything for them to do in the skimpy screenplay but enact cute (and maybe they're just a tad too cute for words) characters who represent "ideas," rather than real people. It's interesting to learn that The Nightowls of Coventry was first conceived as a documentary; evidently, the director had collected quite a few taped conversations with residents of the area, before deciding on doing a feature film. Seeing the tame, tepid results of The Nightowls of Coventry, I would have preferred to see the documentary.

The DVD:

The Video:
The widescreen, 1.78 video image for The Nightowls of Coventry looks just okay; expect a slight video blur anytime anybody moves. Pixilation in some of the darker scenes was evident, as well. The soft picture doesn't hold up on a big screen.

The Audio:
The English 2.0 stereo mix is poor, with dialogue frequently mushy. Close-captioning might have helped -- if there had been any.

The Extras:
There are a few deleted scenes included in this DVD edition of The Nightowls of Coventry; they're rough video, and entirely disposable. There's a trailer for the film; a still gallery; text bios for the crew and some of the cast, a short Sundance Channel: 24 Frame News segment on the film; and a largely irrelevant five minute interview with Harvey Pekar, who did the artwork for the poster.

Final Thoughts:
There's certainly the germ of a good, if familiar, idea in The Nightowls of Coventry, but the truncated, stilted, pedestrian screenplay pretty much scotches that promise. The cast is good, though; too bad they're stuck with cutesie-pie characters you never believe are real. The Nightowls of Coventry would probably get an "A" in film class, but you can safely skip it.