History Awesome / TheRock

* When Hummel becomes desperate enough to threaten a hostage to try to get Goodspeed and Mason to turn over the guidance chips for the rockets, Stanley pulls them out of his pocket with a grim look on his face. Mason ''immediately'' takes them from Stanley and smashes them to bits, then calmly goes out to confront Hummel knowing he has exactly ''zero'' leverage.

* The Green Flares scene. Goodspeed has just killed the last of the marines, he is lying on the floor after injecting himself with atropine. He turns his head weakly and sees the Golden Gate Bridge, sunrise illuminating it. He remembers SEAL Commander Anderson's words "when he neutralizes the threat, we launch green flares and we wait for the cavalry". Goodspeed realizes that jets are inbound to level the island (under the assumption that he and Mason are dead and the VX threat is still active), so what does he do? He forces himself to stand up, likely in immense pain from the needle in his heart, pulls two flares out of his pocket and lights them up. He stumbles out of the door and falls to his knees facing the San Francisco Bay while a rousing soundtrack score plays. Waving the flares desperately, he is spotted at the last minute by a crew on the shoreline and the incoming airstrike is ''narrowly'' called off, and a flight of F/A-18s screams past his head (not before the lead plane deploys his bombs, the explosion of which misses the cells but still launches Goodspeed into the water). It isn't an iconic scene for nothing.

* Hummell and his team stealing the rockets from the base. While Hummell distracts the main guard under the guise of an inspection team, the rest of his unit launch a swift assault that, in a few minutes, has knocked out pretty much the entire base garrison with expert precision, showing how well-trained they are under Hummell. He lost a man in the process locked in the vault with a vial of the gas but otherwise, it was a near-perfect military operation that proves Hummel's tactical brilliance.
** The topper: the front gate guards ''salute'' Hummell and his men as they leave with zero idea they've been robbed right under their noses.

** When Hummel justifies his actions by quoting Thomas Jefferson's famous quote "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants," Mason [[ShutUpHannibal immediately retorts]] "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious, according to Oscar Wilde." It's so brilliant a putdown that [[IResembleThatRemark Hummel slams his elbow into the back of Mason's head]]. "Thank you for proving my point," Mason adds.

** When Hummel justifies his actions by quoting Thomas Jefferson's famous quote "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants," Mason [[ShutUpHannibal immediately retorts]] "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious, according to Oscar Wilde." It's so brilliant a putdown that Hummel slams his elbow into the back of Mason's head. "Thank you for proving my point," Mason adds.