* ''Midnight Run'' is mostly an action film and a good one, but one of the reasons the film was so well-reviewed was the scene in which an out-of-money Jack goes to his ex-wife's house in Chicago with Mardukas in tow, in the hope of borrowing his ex-wife's car. She lends him the car, but the heart of the scene is when Jack's teenage daughter Denise, who he hasn't seen in nine (!) years, comes out of the kitchen and meets her estranged dad and his prisoner. The awkwardness of the conversation, and Jack's fumbling attempts to connect with her, are moving (and funny), but the clincher is when Jack is about to leave and Denise ''attempts to give him the money that she's earned babysitting'', to help him get to LA. He tells her that he can't take it, and indeed doesn't, but even though the scene is played with amazing restraint -- no hugs or tears -- it's the most moving bit of the film.
* The final moments of the film. [[spoiler: Jack gets Mardukas to LA on time, and he phones Eddie from LAX to confirm that he kept his word-- and then informs Eddie that he's letting Mardukas go. Mardukas is so surprised and delighted that he gives Jack the money belt that he's been wearing all the way through the film, and disappears, so Jack finally has more than enough money to open that coffee shop, even if he hasn't got enough loose change to pay for his cab home.]]
** [[spoiler: Made even more heartwarming when Mardukas explains that, because Jack already let him go, that the money is a gift and not a payoff. He's come to understand Jack well enough to know that his sense of honor won't allow him to take it otherwise, and Mardukas makes it possible for him to do so.]]
* Jack has been playing tag with an increasingly frustrated and humiliated Agent Mosely all the way across the country, being bested time and time again by the "third-rate rent-a-thug who couldn't cut it as a cop in Chicago." [[spoiler: When Mosely finally catches Jack, the stoic FBI agent is at first reluctant to listen to anything that Jack has to say, until Jack lays out a plan to allow the FBI to catch their real target, mob boss Jimmy Serrano, including all the different charges that the FBI can legitimately lay on him. For the first time in the movie, Alonzo looks borderline ''excited'' upon hearing the plan, blurting out the order to "get a wire on this guy!" As Jack is putting his shirt back on over the FBI's recording device, he grins at Mosely, who asks what he's smiling about. Jack shrugs and says, "I feel like a cop again." After a moment of consideration, Mosely gives a nod of approval.]]