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There was a short-lived show on TV called Love Monkey starring Tom Cavanagh as an A&R rep for a record label. In the pilot episode, he starts off by saying that he’s a crime fighter, and his job is to ensure that criminally bad music doesn’t hit the music stores. If I were to be so deluded as to describe my blogging about the movies in such terms, then this movie would have to be The Joker. And I gotta admit, I got my ass handed to me by this particular clown.

Manjal Veyyil stars Prasanna and Sandhya as childhood friends, presumed to be lovers by the world and its grandmother-in-law. Not that they are lovers, but none of this matters until the bad guy comes into the picture. Said bad guy is betrothed to her elder sister but decides that he wants her instead. It so happens that the sister is a diabetic, so he messes with her medications and causes her to collapse during their engagement. His parents throw a hissy fit and her dad offers Sandhya’s hand in marriage instead. This, after the groom’s mom gets abusive enough to warrant calling off the match, diabetes or not. And not once does the dad ask his daughter if she is okay with this, or even apologize after the fact. She reacts by running away with Prasanna. I’ll give you a minute to try and work out which asshole she was running away from.

While everyone thinks that the two have eloped, we discover that he is actually helping her find her lover (who went missing sometime ago). When the lover eventually turns up, so does the villain. Cue a standard fight sequence, in which the bad guy does, but not before badly injuring Prasanna. The doc says he’ll live, but will need someone to care for him for the rest of his life. So Sandhya tells her lover that she has to sacrifice her love in order to take care of her friend. He is disappointed, but agrees with her reasoning and leaves. Now, since the two of them have this conversation within earshot of the critically ill but conscious Prasanna, he decides to simplify matters by taking the breathing mask off his face and committing suicide while no one’s looking.

Now you’re probably waiting for me to tell you all that is wrong with the movie, in the most vitriolic language I can summon up.

I ask you: After that plot summary, do I really need to?