THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO

Year: 2002
USA: Touchstone Pictures
UK: Buena Vista International
Cast: Guy Pearce, James Caviezel, J B Blanc, Henry Cavill, Dagmara Dominczyk, James Frain, Luis Guzman, Richard Harris, Helen McCrory, Michael Wincott, Albie Woodington
Director: Kevin Reynolds
Countries: UK / USA
UK: 130 mins
USA Rated: PG-13 for adventure violence/swordplay and some sensuality
UK Certificate: PG contains mild violence and horror
USA Release Date: 25 January 2002
UK Release Date: 19 April 2002


Synopsis

THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO is Alexander 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 Mondego (Guy Pearce), who wants Merceder himself, deceives him.

Set up and unlawfully sentenced to the infamous island prison of Chateau Dlf, Edmond is trapped in a nightmare that lasts for 13 years. Over the years everything he ever believed in 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 (Richard Harris), Dantes plots and succeeds in his mission to escape from prison and subsequently 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.