ABBA: The Movie: one of us is spoiling this film

Ignoring cheap jokes about the music there's just one problem with ABBA: THE MOVIE.
It's the plot.
Rather than shoot a documentary chronicling the Swedish group's week-long tour of Australia in 1977, writer-director Lasse Hallstrom decided to weave a story around it following an incompetent radio DJ's efforts to land an interview with the foursome.
And it just destroys the film.
In the interests of full disclosure I admit that I came to this movie with more inside knowledge than the average viewer. I worked in the UK commercial radio industry for almost two decades and interviewed countless pop acts, so I understand the process involved in lining up an interview with an act as hot as Abba were in 1977.

This is absolutely not how it happens, and anyone with an ounce of commonsense should be able to figure out that the proposition presented here is never going to work.
On the very day that Abba start their tour down under, the boss of Radio 2TW orders his overnight DJ (the lowest position in the on air line-up) to get an in-depth, up close and personal interview with Anni-frid, Bjorn, Benny and Agnetha that can be broadcast the following weekend. No matter that the DJ, Ashley (Robert Hughes), is a country and western music specialist, with no record industry contacts that could get him anywhere close to the group.
I'm not going to claim that the radio industry is managed by a bunch of Einsteins but this guy is particularly stupid. Apart from anything else he's sabotaging his own station by assigning an almost impossible task to the person least likely to succeed at it.
To his credit the young DJ does express his doubts, but his boss doesn't want to hear them, so Ashley sets off in pursuit of Abba, chasing them from Sydney to Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne lugging an unwieldly tape-to-tape recorder and sweating profusely into one blue shirt which he never changes. Of course, without a press pass or any contacts within the Abba entourage he's not able to ask a single question let alone record the group's innermost thoughts on life, love and the whole damn thing.
These silly sequences of Ashley being rebuffed at every concert and press conference just get in the way of what could have been a far more interesting behind the scenes look at life for four young Swedes at the height of their success making their first visit to a country where almost the entire population turned out to greet them. The off-stage documentary footage that Hallstrom has allowed to intrude into Ashley's story is mostly pedestrian and unimaginative, suggesting that little effort was expended in searching for interesting angles. What does come across is the group's lack of ego, their general 'niceness' and their infinite patience with the inane questions from the Oz media. Anni-frid et al also dutifully play along with Hallstrom's vision for the film although I find it difficult to believe they were happy with the outcome. As a record of their first triumphant tour down under it leaves a lot to be desired.