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And now for something completely different: After attracting attention and appreciation with his debut feature, “Monster,” a riveting contemporary drama about a Black high school honor student charged as an accessory to a fatal shooting in his Harlem neighborhood, director Anthony Mandler continues to impress with his sophomore effort, “Surrounded,” an exceptionally well-crafted Western that spins a gripping, racially charged tale of suspicion, deception and survival in post-Civil War New Mexico. Echoes of Sergio Leone, Budd Boetticher and John Ford abound throughout the sturdy screenplay by Andrew Pagana and Justin Thomas. But the movie is less a genre pastiche than a multifaceted character study in which perfectly cast lead players Letitia Wright (“Black Panther”) and Jamie Bell (“Snowpiercer”) do most of the narrative heavy lifting.

It’s 1870, and ex-slave Mo Washington (Wright) is determined to start a new life by journeying westward. Disguised as a man for her own protection,...

A former slave masquerades as a man to enlist in the Union Army and searches for her American dream after the Civil War. Her plans are interrupted when she's trapped guarding a notorious bank robber in a desolate wilderness. Surrounded stars Letitia Wright in a gritty Western that addresses racial and gender inequality with a fusillade of bullets. The protagonist finds an unexpected kinship in a vicious murderer who sees behind her facade. Sublime cinematography and rich character development adds texture to a narrative that runs thin but never fails to be engaging.

Moses Washington (Wright) prays in an 1870 church at the edge of the western frontier. She hides her most prized possession in an old and worn out bible. Mo has secured a land deed to a gold mine in Colorado. It's her treasured prize after leaving the army with a distinguished record. She pretends to be a man...