While using check, all the code that runs at compile time (mainly use commands and anything in a BEGIN block is going to be run. If any of that code hangs, the process will hang. I would start by using Devel::Trace to watch what the process is actually doing when it is haning, you will probably find it's stuck in an infinite loop somewhere or doing something that is very slow a large number of times.

In the case of the strace you provided, it looks like the application is probably doing a lot more than you expected it to while running under -c, as at the end of the strace the application is attempting to make MySQL connections to bench1.tradetech.net.