The Hangover

The first film in the saga was released in cinemas back in 2009.
To give you an idea of its enormous success, the film grossed around $500 million, costing only 30 million.
A sensational gain that immediately convinced Major to ask director Todd Philips to shoot a sequel and then another one.

Todd Philips
Yeah, that's him.
That Todd Philips.
The mind, the director behind that absolute masterpiece last year that was "The Joker".
But how did a director go from a funny, comic, exhilarating, over the top trilogy to a dramatic, intimate, claustrophobic film like the one with Joaquin Phoenix?
Probably because when you're good, you're always good. But perhaps also because in his filmography, Philips has shown that he is able to tell the mad minds, even though he does it with such different genres that they seem to be opposites.
If there's one agective that can describe "The Hangover", it's that one: Crazy.
Coming to the film, which I think you all know, it tells of a "reunion" of 3 friends at the wedding of one of the 3, Doug. The 3 of them have a crazy bachelor party in Las Vegas but have to deal with a new gang member, Alan. Alan is the bride's brother and is included in the bachelor party with some initial intolerance.
Zach Galifanakis, who plays Alan, is very good at calibrating the character of that insistent and very strange madness that envelops the character throughout the trilogy. Alan is in fact a lonely man, fragile and considered insane in the sense of mentally ill. Taciturn and apparently dull, he will prove to be a traveling companion above any madness.
Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Stu (Ed Helms) complete the most exhilarating quartet of recent years.
Anything will happen in Las Vegas.
The pattern is very precise.
Alan, silently, will drug the others and himself, unleashing a lion's night, a night where everything happens and everything is forgotten, including Doug's disappearance/abduction.
And from there Alan, Stu and Phil will search for Doug, retracing the insanity of the night and making new ones.
A pattern that will also be repeated in the second and third films of the trilogy, albeit with different locations.
The Hangover is the film "LOL" par excellence.
If you haven't seen it yet, get it now. If you already know it, maybe dust it off on a day when you need some smiles.