In most respects this suspense-thriller with aquatic antagonists is pretty unremarkable, apart from the sad fact that it was British actor Julian Sands’s last film before he died while hiking. It’s a shame that he didn’t have a more interesting role, but few get to choose their swan song. Sands has a strictly functional supporting role here as Levi, a grizzled boat captain originally from Blighty, looking for the wreck of a ship that went down in the Caribbean during the second world war. Unable to dive any more because of an injury, Levi stays onboard supposedly knitting (even though the red hat he wears looks more like a misbegotten crochet project) while his younger crewmate Noah (Jack Parr) searches the ocean floor.

Then not long after they finally find the wreck, a posse of Noah’s friends from New York show up hoping to enjoy a diving holiday. Levi’s chance to get out of debt by charging one of the richer visitors a ridiculously large fee to see the wreck is the act of greed which surely dooms most of the ensemble. That said, we’re clearly meant to root for Sam (Kim Spearman), Noah’s ex who is now a doctor and presumably the most sympathetic of passengers because she gives a local kid with an infected wound sound medical advice and $20 for a tatty bracelet. From the start it’s obvious that obnoxious and entitled finance bro-cum-influencer Brett (Alexander Arnold) is a dead man swimming. The outcomes for supporting characters Riley (Erin Mullen) and Logan (Arlo Carter) are less foretold by genre convention, but given they are all about to meet a huge shark, don’t hold your breath.

Indeed, as oxygen tanks start to deplete, breath-holding becomes ever more germane to the story. Director Joachim Hedén does a solid, journeyman job of building suspense but, as with all diving films, the cast’s need to wear huge, feature-obscuring masks for large chunks of time becomes an impediment to viewer engagement. And is it even really the actors in those scuba suits? They could easily all be stunt performers, especially since the suspiciously crisp dialogue we hear when they’re talking to each other underwater through microphones in their masks was presumably recorded in a sound studio during post-production. Take away the sharks and this might as well have been a radio play. In fact, it might have even worked better.

• The Last Breath is on digital platforms from 1 July.