‘Hisaab Barabar’ (2025) Movie Review - The Real Issue Here Is Not Corruption But Unintentional Humor

This is how ticket collector Radhe Mohan (R. Madhavan) is introduced in Hisaab Barabar. We see him running to catch a train with lots of oranges in his hand. An old lady (the shopkeeper) runs behind him to give the impression that Radhe has stolen the oranges. Anyway, Radhe boards the train, and all the passengers start to clap. You know this TT is a good man because he shares the fruit with the happy passengers. All is good and fine until a woman (this is Kirti Kulhari's character) refuses to take an orange and accuses Radhe of theft. Suddenly, all those happy passengers turn on Radhe and warn him that they have captured his crime on their mobiles. If Hisaab Barabar is a "social commentary" film, then this scene illustrates that the public has a fickle mind. Within seconds, they can throw you from the pedestal. They can also almost instantly put you back to your original position, which is evident from this scene itself (Radhe explains the reason behind having all those oranges, and people once again start considering him as a good man). Here is the problem, however. Director Ashwni Dhir doesn't use this scene to dispense a moral lesson. He merely wants to make us chuckle. We laugh all right, thanks to the humor that's purely unintentional (when a character dies by falling in front of a train, you giggle). Remember that shopkeeper? She suddenly pops up later on the train and throws an orange towards Radhe Mohan (he apparently forgot to take one). What is that shopkeeper doing on the train? How did she know that she would find Radhe on that very day? Why am I looking for logic in this dim-witted schlep?

But let's return to oranges because Dhir must have developed a fondness for this fruit while making Hisaab Barabar. Hence, the scene where Radhe and his son, Mannu, wear a hoodie whose color turns out to be...orange. A character compares them to a "Santra," but thankfully, doesn't start eating them. They are not that dumb, but there is so much stupidity here that you wish someone would just fix the script instead of addressing corruption. Currently, under "writing credits" on the film's IMDb page, you will find Dhir's and Ritesh Shastri's names. The latter's name is followed by three ellipses, after which you see the words original idea in the brackets. Original? Idea? I didn't laugh this much while watching Hisaab Barabar. The movie - if you can really call it that - leaves you with many questions. For instance, why does Kulhari's character choose to travel on a passenger train? Why doesn't she opt for an auto, metro, or bus instead? How does she always manage to get the side lower berth on the train? I won't reveal her name or profession because I've been asked not to include spoilers. Of course, you can't really spoil something like Hisaab Barabar - it's mind-numbingly predictable.

In one of the scenes, Kulhari's character deboards the train in an outer area or something and walks towards a hospital. She tells Radhe that this is her usual route, which is nothing but a lie because, in an earlier scene, we see her getting down at the Delhi station. Neil Nitin Mukesh is present to fulfill the Herculean demands of a stick figure whose function is to fill the audience with anger. His Mickey Mehta, though, looks more like a Mickey Mouse with his clownish dance. You want to tickle him, not run away from him like a coward. Hisaab Barabar is a "comedy film" whose idea of humor is a line like this: Tu Chaddha ho ya Chaddhi, I don't care. Rashami Desai's character, Mona Lisa, surprises Radhe by holding a rabbit (or was it a rat?) in front of his face and then proceeds to say, "Hum artist ho gye hai. Paper waste se best" or something like that. A credit seller (Ishtiyak Khan) always finds a way to start talking about credit cards even when Radhe says "no" or "not interested." It feels annoying, but nothing beats that scene where a bank employee fights with his boss and gives him threats ("Tu mil mujhe bahar"). The execution is not just messy; it feels as if Dhir doesn't know how to handle this moment. Anyway, are you laughing yet?

One of Radhe's colleagues has a habit of exiting the frame by shouting, "O Gupte!" Since the name of the movie is Hisaab Barabar, we hear lines like "Pichle janam ka hisaab" and "Mai theek hun par shaayad mera hisaab barabar nahi hai." What do you know, the word "Hisaab Barabar" turns out to be Radhe's screensaver! A voice in the background rhythmically whispers, "Hisaab Barabar," while numbers float in the foreground during the scene where Radhe does calculations. If you want to know how much effort, how much imagination Dhir has spent on this school project that does the job of a well-intentioned pamphlet, consider the names of the banks: Do Bank and Daily Bank. With Hisaab Barabar, Dhir wants to wake up the common man. At a mall, Radhe picks up a marker and explains how Do Bank is doing the scam. He and his friends conveniently sit near a glass board, and when everybody starts paying attention to Radhe, he looks like a teacher clarifying a topic from a tricky subject. Thank god, Dhir avoids that cliché where the people get up from their chairs to clap for the main character. Still, notice how this scene ends. Radhe takes his bag and proceeds towards the exit, and the camera reveals that he is surrounded by empty chairs. Where are the others? How long was Radhe sitting in the place? Did his friends leave him alone because they got tired of his lesson?

Mona Lisa's husband is curiously incompetent - he keeps getting fired from his job but is able to quickly find another one. Nevertheless, the couple manages to go on a foreign trip. How did they manage that? This has to be the greatest mystery of Hisaab Barabar. At one point in the film, a boy plays with a bulldozer, and a real bulldozer breaks the wall of his apartment. Things could have been worse. Imagine what would have happened if this child had been playing with a tank. With Hisaab Barabar, Dhir wants to motivate us to fight against corruption, but the movie is so inept, so bad that the audience wouldn't even feel like protesting against the Bollywood cinematic landscape, which is riddled with mediocre to unwatchable detritus. Hisaab Barabar is just another waste matter.

Final Score- [1/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times