Three old college friends, played by Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn, attempt to relive their glory days by founding an unofficial fraternity near their alma mater, one that quickly spirals out of the control of the increasingly desperate, married-with-children Wilson as the university dean tries to shut them down. Director Todd Phillips leans into gleeful, R-rated excess, with Ferrell's manic performance as “Frank the Tank” — a suburban husband who reverts to feral party-animal mode — becoming one of the most quoted comic turns of its era. The film helped establish the specific “grown men behaving like frat boys” comedy formula that Phillips, Ferrell and Vaughn would each return to repeatedly throughout the 2000s. It's widely regarded as a foundational text of the raunchy studio comedy boom that dominated the decade.