So does Shah Rukh cut it as a hockey player cum coach? This is SRK in realistic mode again, after Swades. When Coach Khan and his girls are out on the field, whacking everything in sight, and rampaging through the world’s best teams, you think, hey, that looks do-able. When you hear a mob targeting the disgraced Kabir, who muffs a penalty shot in the dying moments of an important match at the peak of his career, as a Muslim and a gaddaar, you can see the pain and anguish in SRK’s eyes. That’s real, too. But Kabir Khan doesn’t get as far from SRK, as NASA scientist Mohan Bhargav in Swades did.

Still, it is a brave role, executed with finesse, minus starry flourish. And some of the girls spark into life in the best moments in the film: especially the tiny Haryanvi spitfire, the Punjabi lass who lets fly in anger at the drop of a hockey stick, and the pretty thing from Chandigarh who wants to show her cricketing boyfriend just who the real star is. That’s hockey, and the game. Chak De.