“The Great War” takes inspiration from the real-life 92nd Infantry Division, a segregated African-American unit. In the film, a regiment has broken through German lines. But the clock is ticking to the cease-fire, and at 11 a.m., Nov. 11, 1918, the territory they have captured will go to the Germans, leaving them vulnerable to being killed. So a unit, headed by the white, shellshocked Captain Rivers (Bates Wilder), is dispatched to retrieve them.

The rescue scenario steals several tropes from “Saving Private Ryan”; General John J. Pershing (Ron Perlman) even reads aloud a letter from Abraham Lincoln as justification for the mission, as happens in Steven Spielberg’s film. The central drama involves racism within Captain Rivers’s unit and a growing respect between Rivers and Private Cain (Hiram A. Murray), an African-American soldier under his command.