VIDEO : ON-SCREEN BUDDIES PACK A PUNCH.

Byline: Rob Lowman Daily News Entertainment Editor

Hollywood loves the buddy system.

It keeps putting pairs of guys together in action films hoping to hit the jackpot. Last fall, Hollywood rang the bell with the surprise hit ``Rush Hour,'' starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. During the summer, it was ``Lethal Weapon IV,'' which will be out on video Tuesday.

Its being the most successful of any buddy-film series, you wouldn't expect Warners to tamper with this lucrative franchise. Instead, director Richard Donner adds a few spices to the meat and potatoes of Riggs and Murtaugh (Mel Gibson and Danny Glover). One of the spices is in the form of Jet Li, a Hong Kong martial-arts action star whose cold-blooded stares and lightning speed make him a formidable screen presence even if he doesn't speak much English.

There is a plot here, but it doesn't matter much. All you have to know is there is ample bone-shattering violence and the stunts are spectacular. The lighthearted way that death is dealt with may offend some people (``Cool,'' responds Riggs when told that a slaying victim had his eyes eaten by pigeons), but ``Lethal'' fans know what they're getting into.

In fact, most of the dialogue is silly, especially as bodies keep piling up. Comedian Chris Rock (another added spice) and Joe Pesci take time out from the mayhem to do a comic riff on how cell phone companies get you coming and going. Hardly relevant but part of the juvenile appeal of the series, which has - it is hoped - reached its end. The edge from the first film is long gone. Still, mindless as it all may be, Donner directs ``Lethal Weapon IV'' with panache when it would have been easy to take the money and run. Rather, what we got was pure Hollywood escapist entertainment.

Buddy films didn't start with Gibson and Glover, of course, and probably the most successful pairing took place nearly 30 years ago when Paul Newman and Robert Redford teamed up in the western ``Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.''

Unlike the ultraviolence of ``Lethal,'' William Goldman's screenplay focused on the good-natured relationship between Butch (Newman) and Sundance (Redford). They are the perfect pair - Butch is the brains and quick-thinking visionary, and Sundance provides the strong, fast-on-the-draw traditional Old West prototype.

After Butch persuades him to go to Bolivia - although he doesn't know where it is - Sundance tells him, ``You just keep thinkin', Butch. That's what you're good at.'' ``Boy, I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals,'' Butch sighs.

Meanwhile, director George Roy Hill uses slapstick and comedy to poke fun at typical western film cliches. In a memorable scene Butch appears outside the window of Sundance and his girlfriend, Etta, one morning riding the bicycle of ``the future.'' It's practically one of the first music videos as Butch tries out the new invention with Etta on the handlebars, accompanied by Burt Bacharach's Oscar-winning song ``Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head'' (sung by B.J. Thomas).

When the pair face impossible odds in their final shootout, rather than showing their bullet-ridden deaths (a la ``Bonnie and Clyde''), the picture ends with the well-known freeze-frame of their fateful charge. The image fades to a sepia, reminding us how we have romanticized the past, especially the Old West. The result is a charming film that, because of its wit, will never seem dated.

Newman, Redford and Hill teamed up a few years later for another buddy picture, ``The Sting,'' which won seven Oscars, including Best Picture. The film about two Depression-era con men, which is being released on a special 25th anniversary video, is a lavish production, and Newman and Redford again show their on-screen chemistry. Enhancing the mood is a soundtrack of Scott Joplin's ragtime music.

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Photo: Thanks to the chemistry between Danny Glover and Mel Gibson, ``Lethal Weapon 4'' manages to be enjoyable even without much of a story line.