If you suffered all the way through “Speed Kills” starring John Travolta playing Don Aronow, you already know you squandered one hour and forty minutes you’ll never get back. I chose to cut and run somewhere around the 12-minute mark in the movie, and I’m still kicking myself for hanging that long. Time is too precious to waste on anything so awful.

High-performance powerboats will once again have a starring role in a Hollywood action movie. Photo from the 2021 Florida Powerboat Club Key West Poker Run by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

To be fair, “Speed Kills”—at least the first painful 12 minutes I caught—was about average-awful for a motion picture in which high-performance powerboats play a starring role. The television show-based “Miami Vice” picture was equally unwatchable. The list goes on.

“Cut and Run,” as it happens, isn’t just a figure of speech. According to a recent article in Variety, it’s the name of a new movie starring—and being co-produced by—actor Jake Gyllenhaal.

The premise? “A group of thieves using high-powered speedboats to rob superyachts steal the wrong thing from the wrong group of people.”

OK, I do like that premise. It sounds fun and—if such a thing is possible in action movies these days—original. An accomplished Hollywood screen and television writer named John Glenn (not to be confused with the late accomplished astronaut and former Senator) wrote the screenplay, and per the Variety story it was valuable enough to end up in a bidding war.

According to movieinsider.com, the film currently is in development. A release date has not been announced.

Could “Cut and Run” be the first watchable movie with powerboats in a starring role? Of course there are no guarantees and history is not on its side. But like so many of you, I’ll probably try to watch it.

I just hope I last longer than 12 minutes.