Rocking Chennai Express - A typical sambar and sandalwood creation

Chennai Express is the kind of non-toxic comic entertainer where the most damaging double-entendres you'd get is a Tamil word that sounds like Angelina Jolie's name.

Deepika as the runaway Tamilian girl who piles on to the North Indian mithaiwala stranger to escape marrying the boorish fiancee back home in her village in Tamil Nadu.

Some of the long shots of the train winding through green area is breathtaking. And Shah Rukh's first meeting with Deepika's father over a bridge over a fast-flowing river is shot with amazing brio.

There's a wonderfully-shot sequence where Shah Rukh has to carry Deepika to a temple over hundreds of steps. Deepika here goes from amusement and mockery to a sense of belonging and pride in her man's arms. It's a moment built with care and love.

But then, such tender affection really has no place in this comedy of cultural dispossession where the Punjabi boy Rahul gets embroiled in Tamil girl Meena's family affairs and comes out... well not quite wiser. But filled with self-mocking laughter.

Shah Rukh pokes a whole lot of good-natured fun at his now-aging lover-boy persona. There are tongue-in-cheek references to Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and several other Shah Rukh Khan films and songs including the introductory South Indian lines from the "Jiya jale" song in "Dil Se".