"The Invisible War," a devastating documentary about the tens of thousands of sexual assaults that take place within the U.S. military every year, has already had an effect on policy even before its release on Friday.
Within days of seeing the film in April, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced a crucial change in the way in which reported rapes will be investigated in the military – and he told one of the film's executive producers that the screening was partly responsible for his decision.
Then, last month, a major general who appears in the film as a defender of the way the military has handled the cases – and who in the process appeared to be a rather clueless apologist for a badly broken system – was replaced.