The beating of Gollum is just plain bad. I cannot misinterpret it; it's not like they treated Gollum sternly and he acted as if it were torture. No, these were bullies beating a smaller and weaker creature. Were they knocking him around a bit to 'soften him up' for Faramir's interrogation? Why then did they not beat Sam or Frodo? Did Gollum bite one or more of them, and so did they treat him in kind?
In the books Aragorn states that the creature would never love him, as he was not gentle, but I do not see book Aragorn striking a prone Gollum as it lay weeping.
You feel sorry for the thing, and so his reconversion (or backsliding, or whatever you want to call Slinker becoming Stinker again) is justified. Frodo, rightly or wrongly, gets what he deserves as he befriends Faramir, the captain of the bullies, in the end.
PJ messed that all up.
