Story | Credits | Photographs | Trailer STORY The Count of Monte Cristo is Alexandre Dumas' classic story of an innocent man wrongly but deliberately imprisoned and his brilliant strategy for revenge against those who betrayed him. Dashing young sailor Edmond Dantes (JIM CAVIEZEL) is a guileless and honest young man whose peaceful life and plans to marry the beautiful Mercedes (DAGMARA DOMINCZYK) are abruptly shattered when his best friend, Fernand (GUY PEARCE), who wants Mercedes for himself, deceives him. Set up to be unjustly sentenced to the infamous island prison of Chateau D'If, Edmond is trapped in a nightmare that lasts 13 years. Haunted by the baffling course his life has taken, over time he abandons everything he ever believed about right and wrong and is filled with all-consuming thoughts of vengeance against those who betrayed him. With the help of an equally innocent fellow inmate (RICHARD HARRIS), Dantes plots and succeeds in his mission to escape from prison, whereupon he transforms himself into the mysterious and wealthy Count of Monte Cristo. With cunning ruthlessness, he cleverly insinuates himself into the French nobility and systematically destroys the men who manipulated and enslaved him.