Betrayed by his childhood friend Fernand Guy Pearce, sailor Edmond Dantes Jim Caviezel is found guilty of trumped-up charges and sent to the island prison of Chateau d'If. Thirteen years later, having learnt the art of fencing from the Abb Faria Richard Harris, a fellow inmate who also revealed to him the location of a vast treasure hidden on the island of Monte Cristo, Edmond realises that the time has come and carries out a daring escape attempt. Taking the treasure for himself, he reappears as the Count of Monte Cristo and becomes the talk of Parisian society but he soon learns that Fernand has married Mercds Dagmara Dominczyk, Edmond's own childhood sweetheart, and starts drawing up his plans for revenge.