VIDEO : FRANKENHEIMER ENDURES.

Byline: Rob Lowman Daily News Entertainment Editor

Robert De Niro plays Sam, an American veteran of the espionage game, in the thriller ``Ronin,'' which debuts on video Tuesday. From the outset, it's quite clear that despite his age and haggard look, Sam is no burnout. He has survived in his dangerous profession on skill, wiles and guts.

And speaking of guts, in one scene the wounded Sam instructs his cohorts on how to remove a bullet from his side. ``I once removed a guy's appendix with a grapefruit spoon,'' he says matter-of-factly. After steering them through the operation, Sam deadpans: ``You think you can stitch me up on your own? If you don't mind, I'm gonna pass out.''

Veteran director John Frankenheimer (``The Manchurian Candidate,'' ``52 Pick-Up'') must have had more than a few moments of recognition while shooting that scene.

After more than 40 years in the business, Frankenheimer has endured countless barbs and arrows from critics as well as numerous ups and downs in the industry. Yet the filmmaker, who turns 69 today, has survived. And unlike a lot of his contemporaries, he's still in the game.

This is more due to Frankenheimer's adaptability than his particular style. Having learned his craft in early live TV, he was always willing to push technique (Frankenheimer was one of the first directors to extensively use hand-held cameras). But that didn't mean that he shied away from interesting subjects or didn't address substantive issues.

In his 1965 film ``The Train,'' starring Burt Lancaster, he asks if the preservation of art is worth the sacrifice of human life. And certainly ``Candidate,'' ``Seven Days in May,'' ``Seconds'' and ``The Birdman of Alcatraz'' are thought-provoking films.

But Frankenheimer has never made a great film. Perhaps he doesn't have the singular artistic vision necessary to do so. That, however, seems to be his saving grace: smart enough to do something interesting but flexible enough to roll with the punches. When Frankenheimer's movie career seemed at an end in the '80s and early '90s, he returned to television to do movies there. A couple of Emmys helped resuscitate his career. Now with the success of ``Ronin,'' Frankenheimer isn't thought of as an old-timer past his prime.

In ``Ronin,'' you can see Frankenheimer's strengths and weaknesses. Basically a chase movie in which the Irish Republican Army hires five mercenaries, including De Niro and Jean Reno, to retrieve a briefcase. (Nobody ever finds out what's in the briefcase. It's a McGuffin, Hitchcock's term for a plot device that essentially switches on the action because everybody cares about it.)

There is plenty of stylized action, plus twists and turns in the plot. The dialogue, which reportedly was punched up by David Mamet, is suitably professionally tough-guyish. In short, it's an entertaining thriller; it's just not really about much on that level.

There is one thread running through it, though, that seems familiar: Hard-boiled Sam falls for the IRA paymistress, Deirdre (Natascha McElhone). It seems that no matter how tough the guy is in a Frankenheimer film, he always has a soft spot, and sometimes that's good, and sometimes it's not.

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Photo

Photo: Robert De Niro is an American mercenary hired by the IRA to retrieve a mysterious briefcase in John Frankenheimer's ``Ronin.''