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 (Caviezal) is a guileless and honest young man whose peaceful life and plans to marry the beautiful Mercedes (Dominczyk) are abruptly shattered when his best friend Fernand (Pearce), who wants Mercedes for himself, deceives him. He sets him up to be unlawfully sentenced to the infamous island prison of Chateau D'If. Edmond is trapped in this nightmare that lasts for thirteen years. Haunted by the baffling course his life has taken, over time everything he ever believed about right and wrong is abandoned and replaced by all-consuming thoughts of vengeance against those who betrayed him. With the help of an equally innocent fellow inmate (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.