Awesome / Magnum Force

• Harry's Establishing Character Moment from this movie. He stumbles on an airplane hijacking, with the airport personnel waiting for the FBI and an overseas pilot, so he infiltrates on the plane unarmed and solves the situation by knocking down one of the hijackers and then using his gun to kill the other shooting through one of the plane's walls. Then, as he leaves, he meets Lt. Briggs, who personally transferred Harry to stakeout squad.
• Somewhat convoluted, but surprisingly Chessmasterish moment. Harry is in a shooting competition with a man he (correctly) suspects in a series of vigilante shootings; he (reasonably) asks to borrow the man's gun. The suspect, already in a Columbo-like situation, agrees. Harry proceeds to intentionally miss to lodge the slug in a 2x4. At night he returns to the shooting gallery, and uses the bullet he extracts from it to compare the ballistics on the vigilante shootings.
  • Harry doesn't actually miss - he shoots a target with the photo of a policeman on it, which might have been his way of telling the vigilante cops he was onto them.
• Early's unblinking stare against a racist robber threatening him during a stake out operation he and Harry are involved in (a stakeout which ends with three dead hold up men, in case anyone has to ask).
• The four rookie cops Establishing Character Moment at the target range, where Sweets does a fancy bit of shooting, and then casually reveals to Harry that he's actually the least skilled marksman of the four.
• The very last use of "A man's got to know his limitations."
• The climax of the film is impressive not just on the merits of the action but because of how much it subverts the viewer's expectations - you'd assume that it ends in a big shootout but Harry, Trope Codifier for so much that is firearm-related, takes out the entire death squad without firing a single shot.
• The opening credits is a close up of a Magnum .44, near the end it is slowly cocked that right at the end Harry swivels it right at the viewer.
  "This is a .44 Magnum. It's the most powerful handgun in the world. And it could blow your head clear off. Do you feel lucky?" *BOOM!*

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